


In Memoriam

by paperstorm



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship muke, M/M, Minor Violence, POV Alternating, Triggers, non-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:39:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 59,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An accident during a performance ends for Luke in blood and total retrograde amnesia; rendering his mind an empty slate that doesn’t know as much as his own first name. His band is left to help him reassemble the scattered pieces of his life, to coax his memories back, and to deal with the fallout when the most important thing is the one thing Luke can’t remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _I hold it true, whate’er befall;_  
_I feel it when I sorrow most;_  
_‘Tis better to have loved and lost  
_ _Than never to have loved at all._

 _In Memoriam (“Into Memory")  
_ _Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 1849_

* * *

 

“Are you bitches coming, or what?” Ashton’s voice yells, from the other side of the door to Michael’s hotel room. Luke is curled up on his bed, sleepy and rumpled, and Michael knows the answer before he opens the door. They  _just_  got here. The flight wasn’t as long as some they’ve been on, but it was still exhausting. Travelling always is.  
   
“You can’t stay in,” Calum informs, pushing past Michael. Ashton enters as well and Michael lets the door swing shut.  
   
“We’re  _tired_.”  
   
“So then drink some coffee!”  
   
“Can we meet you somewhere in a bit?” Luke pleads, in his little boy voice, burrowing his face into the pillows. He’s such a princess sometimes, and they all fall for it. Michael secretly finds it adorable. He thinks Calum and Ashton find it draining.  
   
Ashton looks to Michael for assistance, but Michael shrugs and chuckles, “Hey, I am not in charge on this one. If he doesn’t want to go, I’m not going either.”  
   
“Are you really that whipped for him?” Calum asks.  
   
“Okay, one, fuck you,” Michael starts, counting off on his fingers, “and two, he can  _hear_ you.”  
   
“I’m aware of that.”  
   
“Listen. We’re in  _London_ ,” Ashton says, grandly. As if that is a point in itself. He isn’t exactly wrong.  
   
Still – “We’re in Norwich,” Michael corrects.  
   
“It’s still England. It counts. We lived here for months. We played shows here, we wrote songs here. We bonded and shit.”  
   
“This is where we became a real band,” Calum agrees. “Away from home for the first time, with nothing but each other.”  
   
“And my Mum,” Luke points out, from under a mountain of blankets.  
   
“And Liz,” Ashton concedes. “He’s right, though. This isn’t just about wandering around.”  
   
“Taking pictures of street art as if that makes you deep and sensitive,” Michael says, initializing the teasing, and Luke finishes his thought – “Being hipster, Instagram boyfriends.”  
   
Michael chuckles again.  
   
“Says the actual boyfriends.” Ashton rolls his eyes. “This is for old time’s sake! Come on, you’re not allowed to crap out on this.”  
   
“Nando’s!” Calum yells, loud, like that alone should be enough to convince Luke to go.  
   
And then, maybe it does. Luke lifts his head up, suddenly interested, and now it’s Michael’s turn to roll his eyes. “Seriously? You’re getting it up for  _chicken_?”  
   
“You’re coming,” Calum announces, making the decision. “Both of you. This is official banding. You have to come, we can’t do it without half the band. You came come back here later and do your – your whole Luke-and-Michael thing. Whatever it is you two get up to while Ash and I go out and have  _fun_.”  
   
Michael raises an eyebrow at him. “Do you seriously not know what we’re doing?”  
   
“Michael,” Luke groans.  
   
“What, like it’s a secret?” Michael cries in his own defense. “Did you really think we were playing Scrabble?”  
   
Calum makes a face at him.  
   
“You have five minutes,” Ashton tells them. “If you’re not in the lobby, ready to go, in  _five minutes_ , we are coming back up here and dragging you out ourselves. I don’t care if you’re both butt-naked and your whole fist is up Luke’s ass, I’ll drag you out like that.”  
   
Luke squeaks, and then shouts, “Hey! What the fuck, why am I the one getting fisted?”  
   
“Say that a little louder, maybe?” Calum cringes and glances at the wall behind Luke, no doubt wondering how thin it is.  
   
“Because Michael’s hands are smaller,” Ashton advises him, with a smirk that Michael wants to smack right off his face. He turns and walks out, and Calum gets up and jogs after him. The door swings closed again behind them.  
   
“Oh my God,” Michael mutters.  
   
Luke’s face is bright red, and he looks about half a second away from deciding he’s pulling a Zayn Malik and leaving the band forever. “Fuck Ashton.”  
   
Michael bites his lip. “He was joking, dude.”  
   
“I know.” Luke still glares in the direction of the door, and then extracts himself from the pile of blankets and stands up.  
   
“Do you really not wanna go?” Michael asks. They won’t, if Luke wants to stay in that badly. Cal and Ash can deal.  
   
“No, I … I do. They’re right. We didn’t really revisit all the places we used to go last time, because …” Luke looks at him. “Because you weren’t with us.”  
   
“Oh.” Michael lost his passport, last time. He was stuck in New York for nearly a week while his band was in London, just before Christmas last year.  
   
Luke shrugs. “We didn’t wanna do a whole trip down memory lane without you.”  
   
“That’s dumb, but sweet.” Michael goes to him and wraps his arms around Luke’s waist. Luke still looks tired. “So we’ll go do some shit, bond as a band or whatever it is Ash wants, and then come back here and sleep. We have to be up crazy early tomorrow anyway, they’re not gonna want to be out late.”  
   
Luke pouts, and Michael can’t help laughing. Luke is so big and so cute at the same time, and it shouldn’t be possible.  
   
“What?” he asks, shaking Luke a little. “What’s with you?”  
   
“I’m tired. And I’m fucking horny, okay?” Luke admits, rolling his eyes when Michael raises his eyebrows suggestively. “Shut up.”  
   
“Damn,” Michael laughs. He kisses Luke’s lips, and lets one hand slip down to cup Luke’s dick through his pants. “I didn’t know that. I really wish we could stay, now.”  
   
“Don’t,” Luke whines, pushing Michael’s hand away. “We have to go. I’m not going down there with a fucking boner.”  
   
“Sorry.” Michael kisses him again, sweeter this time.  
   
“I just miss you,” Luke sighs.  
   
“M’right here, babe.”  
   
“I know, just … it’s been a bit. Since we’ve been alone.”  
   
“You’re  _killing_  me,” Michael moans, but unhappily, because now that’s all he wants too. It has been a while, since they’ve had the chance for something more than rushed hand-jobs in the shower. He misses Luke too, more than physically. He misses the closeness.  
   
Luke’s hands settle on the back of Michael’s neck, big and warm, and he looks at Michael with his blue eyes dark and intense, and Michael is  _so_  close to caving, throwing the deadbolt and the chain on the door so their bandmates can’t get back in, and pushing Luke down onto the mattress and taking him right now. He can’t, though. Not right now, anyway.  
   
“We have to go,” he says reluctantly.  
   
“Later?” Luke asks, into another kiss. “We’ve been so busy on the tour, s’been so long since I’ve had time to fuck you, God, I wanna fuck you, Mikey.”  
   
“ _Fuck_ ,” Michael whimpers, as a shiver trickles down his spine. Luke did that on purpose. “I hate you. But yes, shit, later.”  
   
“You could pretend to feel sick or something. So we don’t have to be gone so long.”  
   
“They’d see through it so fast.”  
   
Luke shrugs. “Maybe I don’t care.”  
   
“Okay. Maybe I don’t either.”

* * *

 

 

“To things coming around full circle,” Ashton says, holding up his glass. His band-mates roll their eyes, Michael more than the rest of them, but they follow his lead anyway and hold their cups up to bump against his, hovering over the middle of the table.  
   
“To chicken,” Luke says, his eyes sparkling. There are still dark circles under them, but he’s perked up considerably. Ashton wonders what Michael had to do to convince Luke to come out with them. On second thought, he doesn’t want to know.  
   
Calum cracks up. “We’re here trying to be nostalgic and all Luke cares about is food. How about to the fact that we’re playing shows at  _Wembley_  in two weeks! That’s fuckin’ huge.”  
   
“ _Headlining_  shows,” Luke corrects. “Not playing, headlining. Ten thousand people coming out just to see us, not because we’re opening for One Direction and they have no choice but to sit through our shitty set-list. It  _is_  fuckin’ huge, and I don’t just care about food, I care about food in  _addition_  to everything else.”  
   
“Can we just pick a damn thing to toast so I can put this glass down?” Michael complains.  
   
“To us,” Calum decides. “To everything that we’ve accomplished in the years since we lived here, and to everything we will accomplish before the next time we’re back.”  
   
It’s perfect, and Ashton smiles at him and finishes, “Cheers, boys!”  
   
“That was so stupid,” Michael grumbles, not even bothering to sip from his drink before he’s plopping it back on the table. Ashton makes a kissy face at him, and Michael rolls his eyes but he laughs. “Shut up.”  
   
“I like the blue,” Luke says, out of absolutely nowhere reaching over and combing his fingers through Michael’s fairy-dust hair.  
   
“Random, but thank you.” Michael grins at him. “Matches your eyes, remember?”  
   
Calum groans. “Fuck,  _tell_  me that isn’t why you did blue this time. You guys, no. That’s so cheesy.”  
   
“It’s cute,” Ashton says, and Michael, predictably, rolls his eyes yet again. He’s going to injure his optic nerves. He also doesn’t deny the accusation that he dyed his hair to match Luke’s eyes, which probably means that’s exactly what he did. Ashton doesn’t really remember a time when being in this band didn’t mean being half-amused and half-annoyed at Luke and Michael being  _Luke and Michael_. It’s just part of their dynamic as a group. It’s a piece of what makes them who they are, that two of the four are going to bicker and tease and flirt and love each other a whole lot.  
   
“It’s not cute. It’s punk rock,” Michael asserts. For someone who’s been nicknamed  _kitten_  by their fanbase and lives up to it on a daily basis, Michael makes that assertion a lot. All part of his charm, Ashton supposes, that he thinks he’s a lot more of a badass than he really is.  
   
“There is nothing punk rock about falling in love with your bandmate.” Calum shakes his head. “Especially since you’ve known each other since school, and hated each other at first? That’s romantic comedy shit. You guys are all sweet and fluffy. Like a Valentine’s Day card.”  
   
“He’s bitter because he’s single,” Luke says, to Michael about Calum. He slips his arm over Michael shoulders and pulls him closer on the padded seat. In their booth, tucked away in the back of the restaurant, no one can see them. The place is fairly empty right now anyway; it isn’t peak dining hours. The few patrons scattered around tables in the front didn’t even look up when the four of them walked in.  
   
Luke used to be so shy. Ashton remembers it, brightly and vivid. When Luke and Michael first started dating for real, when they stopped hiding their feelings for each other in tour bus bunks and dark hotel rooms and secret glances that betrayed what they’d been doing for years behind closed doors. Luke was so cautious, so worried someone might see, find out, ruin everything. He was worried it would change Calum and Ashton’s opinion of him, worried if they were too explicit about it things would be weird for the rest of the band. And they might have been, at first. Michael was worried too. He isn’t as confident as the image he projects.  
   
They’d been in their secret, pseudo-relationship basically since Ashton met them, but it was confined to shadows.  It was one of those  _things_ , one of those badly kept secrets that just wasn’t ever spoken out loud even though it hung over them all like fog. Once it was  _real_ , it was a bit strange for a while. And then it wasn’t anymore. It makes Ashton happy, for his friends and for himself. It was the hiding he hated more than anything. The uncertainty of not knowing what Luke and Michael were; and not being allowed to talk about it.  
   
Michael scoots closer and leans into Luke, his head pillowed on Luke’s shoulder, and flips his middle finger at Calum.  
   
After they’re all stuffed, they wander around the city. It’s always a risk, whenever they abandon their security detail, that they’ll run into a horde of screaming fans, but this time they don’t. It’s by coincidence more than anything, but Ashton is glad it works out that way. When they lived in London, they used to wander around together at night – sometimes at three in the morning – through the snow and the darkness. Just talking. Absorbing the city. Learning more about themselves and each other, letting the outside world permeate their skin and echo inspiration into the songs they wrote there. As far as Ashton knows, Liz isn’t aware they did it. They used to sneak out after she’d gone to bed and sneak back in before morning. To this day it’s their secret, something they shared with only each other. It’s sentimental in a warm, blurry way, being back in the U.K. It makes Ashton remember who they used to be, like Calum said at dinner.  
   
He tosses his arm casually around Calum’s shoulders as they walk down a deserted street. “Big Radio Weekend tomorrow,” he says.  
   
“I sort of hate these things,” Calum responds. “Playing at a thing that isn’t, like,  _our_  show. Half the audience has never heard of us.”  
   
“I kind of doubt that’ll be the case.” Ashton ruffles his hair and then lets his arm fall away from Calum. He should’ve brought a warmer jacket. It’s only May and he’s cold in the damp England air  
   
“No, he’s right,” Luke agrees. “Even if they know who we are, they aren’t our  _fans_. So we’re like ‘guys, sing along!’ and no one knows the words. It’s awkward.”  
   
Ashton agrees with them, but doesn’t say it. “We’re gonna kick ass. We always do.”  
   
Michael grabs Luke suddenly and pulls him in close enough to whisper something to him as they walk; Luke leans in to hear, and then they both giggle and share a covert smile.  
   
“What,” Calum asks, flatly.  
   
“Nothing,” Luke says.  
   
“We’re banding, no secrets allowed!” Ashton points out indignantly.  
   
“I was reminding Luke of the time we all went to that Muse concert when we first moved here – ”  
   
“Michael, don’t,” Luke cuts in, laughing, but Michael ignores him.  
   
“ – and I sucked him off in the bathroom while you guys were tricking the bartender into selling us booze. Happy now?” he directs at Calum, with a smirk that suggests he knows Calum won’t be.  
   
Calum groans again and looks at Ashton, a  _help me_  look written all over his face.  
   
“Hey, you asked,” Ashton says, holding up his hands. “Don’t look at me.”  
   
“You asked too!”  
   
“No I didn’t. I told them to stop telling secrets, not to let us in on the secret they’d already told. You fully dug your own grave on that one, Hood.”  
   
“Why do all your stories end up with you blowing Luke in a fucking bathroom?” Calum grumbles, reaching over and shoving Michael’s shoulder. He isn’t really mad. He just thinks he  _should_  be. It’s the principle of it all.  
   
“They do not,” Michael argues. “Like twenty percent, at  _most_.”  
   
“God, can we not?” Luke implores, blushing an impressive scarlet.  
   
“ _Banding_ ,” Ashton repeats. It’s a made-up word, but to them, it means a lot. He puts his arm back around Calum and pushes the dark-haired boy toward the other two.  
   
Calum grumbles about it still, but he takes the cue and puts his arm around Michael, and Michael’s goes around Luke. They walk, like some kind of four-headed beast, or the yellow-brick-road gang from the  _Wizard of Oz_ , down an alleyway. Ashton doesn’t know where they are or where they’re heading – probably this is going to end up with them getting themselves hopelessly lost and calling Dave to come rescue them. It’s happened before. Ashton doesn’t mind. Moments like these take him back to New South Wales, back to when it was just the four of them in Michael’s rec room, the concept of becoming a real band running on frozen pizza and unfounded optimism and impossible dreams.  
   
“So we take over the BBC tomorrow,” he says. “Next stop, the world.”  
   
Michael whoops loudly. “Let’s rock out with our cocks out.”  
   
“ _Socks_ ,” Luke corrects with a bubbly laugh.  
   
“That’s not what I said.”  
   
“I  _beg_  you to whip your dick out on national television. I will give you a million dollars,” Calum dares.  
   
“Done,” Michael returns cockily.  
   
“You won’t,” Luke says.  
   
“No, I won’t,” Michael concedes. “We’d get in too much shit. It would be funny, though.”  
   
“Right up until it ruined our careers.” Calum laughs, and then swears. “Ow, Michael you stepped on my foot.”  
   
“It’s not my fault, why are we walking like this?” Michael cries. Luke hums in agreement, but no one lets go.  
   
_Good_ , Ashton thinks. They should be together like this, in the country where it all started. Where their dreams of being rockstars went from fantasy to reality. No one ever gets out of Australia, but they did. This is where everything began. It’s fitting that they’ve come back around to this place, and Ashton isn’t going to let them forget it in the fray of the weekend. If they don’t take stock of these moments, when they’re all old and grey they won’t remember any of it. In the end, when a life has been lived, memories are the only thing that matters.

*           *           *


	2. Chapter 2

They end up in a pub; a dark, ancient, crooked little place that looks right out of a fairy tale. Ashton loves it, Calum can tell. His face lights up when they walk in. It’s very  _him_ , this place – colloquial and quaint and about as far removed from corporate America as they could get. Ashton’s a bit of a hippy, sometimes. Calum likes that about him. They’ll stay, the two of them, after Luke and Michael get antsy for each other and take off. It won’t be long. Michael’s already getting that look on his face, where his eyes go dull and his expression slackens. The one that means he’s had enough socializing and needs to go home; or, whatever they’re calling  _home_  at any given moment. Usually that means a hotel room, these days.  
   
“Do you think there are Leprechauns here?” Luke asks stupidly, as they crowd into a booth in the back, tucked away in shadows even though the clientele of this place is older and blue-collar and probably hasn’t even heard of them or any other band formed in the last decade. Calum suspects they could have burst into the joint, yelled  _Hey we’re 5 Seconds of Summer!_ , and the most they’d get is a few weary glances over the top of beer mugs and some heavy sighs about  _kids today._  
   
“We’re not in Ireland,” Ashton reminds him. “It isn’t even on the same island. Also Leprechauns aren’t real.”  
   
“Ooh, Mr. I-Finished-High-School,” Michael mocks, but gently. Friendly teasing.  
   
“Luke finished, technically,” Ashton responds.  
   
“Equivalency. It doesn’t count.”  
   
“It fully counts!” Luke laughs. “If the band ever goes tits-up and I wanted to apply for Uni, I could get in on my  _equivalency_. You and Calum couldn’t.”  
   
“Why am I being dragged into this?” Calum complains. A female bartender, maybe 40, with long hair and a nice smile, comes over and sets the beers on the table Ashton ordered for them at the bar when they came in.  
   
“Solitarily,” Michael tells him. “You and me are the dumb ones.”  
   
“Rude.” Calum flicks him. “Also untrue. I was better at school than you two. I didn’t drop out because I’m dumb, I dropped out because you needed a bass player.”  
   
“Do you regret it?” Ashton asks, with a wide smile that carves dimples into his cheeks.  
   
“No.” Calum smiles back and raises his glass. “Best decision I ever made. Cheers.”  
   
“Are we seriously doing this again?” Michael complains. He sounds tired.  
   
“Just do it and shut up about it.”  
   
Michael does. He complains a lot more than he outright refuses them anything. Calum’s known him for ten years, and that’s never changed. Exactly one beer later, he’s nearly dragging Luke out of the place by his sleeve, stating they’ve more than put in their time and are leaving now. Not that Luke puts up much of a fight. He blushes, embarrassed as always that he and Michael are off to spend  _time together_ and that everyone knows exactly what that means, but he goes easily with an awkward little wave in Calum and Ashton’s direction, and then they’re gone and Ashton giggles and lets his head fall forward onto the table.  
   
“What?” Calum asks, laughing too.  
   
“They’re cute and stupid and I hate them a little bit. But mostly love them a lot.”  
   
“Me too.”  
   
“Are you psyched for tomorrow?”  
   
“Yes. You?”  
   
“So much. You ever think about things like this and think like … what if we could go back in time and tell our younger selves about this shit? That we made it out of Oz? That we’re a real band, that we actually did it?”  
   
“Are you trying to make me cry?” Calum jokes, but he’s halfway serious.  
   
“You’re right, this conversation needs more alcohol.” Ashton motions toward the bartender and holds up two fingers.  
   
“So now you’re trying to get me drunk.”  
   
Ashton smiles. “No. Two or three is our limit tonight, we have to be up at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow. But if Luke and Michael are off having fun, we should be too. Just … a different kind of fun.”  
   
“I will  _not_  suck your dick.”  
   
Ashton giggles again and shakes his head. “I’m heartbroken. Okay, fine, we’ll just  _talk_.”  
   
Calum nods, and keeps on laughing. Sometimes with Ashton, he never stops. “Deal.”

* * *

 

Luke wraps himself around Michael the moment the door swings closed behind them, the soft sound of the latch loud in his ears. He wraps his arms across Michael’s middle and kisses his cheek, the faint rasp of stubble against his lips rough and enticing.  
   
Michael chuckles, low and soft. The sound slides, smooth, down Luke’s spine and makes him shiver. “Right into it, then? No foreplay?”  
   
“What d’you call this?” Luke asks. He drags the tip of his nose along Michael’s cheek and lets his hand move down, fingers playing along the waistband of Michael’s jeans and then trailing over the fabric; finding his dick half-interested in his pants and cupping it. Squeezing around it, feeling for the head with his palm and rubbing slowly. Michael likes it slow, at the beginning. He likes to be teased. He wouldn’t admit it, but Luke knows. After so much time, he knows a lot.  
   
“Luke,” Michael breathes. He hardens under Luke’s touch, and Luke smiles, self-satisfied. The thrill of affecting Michael so easily never dulls. It’s as sharp and intoxicating as it was years ago.  
   
“Yes?” Luke asks, fake-innocence.  
   
Michael laughs again. “Nothing. Just … keep going?”  
   
“Feels good?” Luke kisses his neck, pressing small, soft pecks just under Michael’s jaw.  
   
“Didn’t figure you’d jump me the second we ditched Ash and Cal and got back here. You really that hard up?” Michael takes the heat off himself and puts it on Luke, but the tiny movements of his hips tell Luke the words he doesn’t say.  
   
Luke tilts his own hips forward, letting Michael feel him. It’s hardly anything at all but it still has Luke clenching his jaw; barely-there contact of his cock against Michael’s ass, through way too many layers of clothing.  
   
He wanted to stay out with Calum and Ashton longer; he really did. He just wanted this, too. There’s never enough time for both. It’s their pattern, anyway, like Calum said earlier tonight. They have time together as a group, and then they split into twos. It’s only partially to do with the fact that Luke and Michael do what they’re about to. It’s mostly because Calum and Ashton like to go off on their adventures, and Michael likes staying in. Luke falls somewhere in the middle, and he jumps back and forth between them, but more often than not he’d rather stay in with Michael and eat pizza and play on his X-Box and chat about nothing than venture out into the world where running into fans is always a possibility. He loves their fans, but fame makes Luke uncomfortable.  
   
“We could move to the bed, you know,” Michael points out. “Instead of hovering here by the door.”  
   
Luke smiles and kisses his cheek. “Okay.”  
   
Michael pulls away from him and moves, tugging his shirt off over his head as he goes. Luke watches him, watches smooth, pale skin revealed inch by inch, the black rings marring the perfect surface. He’s more attracted to those rings that he’s willing to admit. They’re so beautiful against Michael’s skin. And the newest addition, the symbol for  _home_ from a video game, is so very  _Michael_  that Luke loves it just as much. His tongue sneaks out to wet his lips unconsciously, and he adjusts himself where his erection is caught in tight skinny jeans.  
   
Looking back, Michael’s forehead creases into a frown as his lips curve into a smile. They’re tinted red right now because he’s flushed and turned on – and because they were making out in the elevator. “What?” he asks.  
   
Luke smiles again and shakes his head. “Nothing. Enjoying the view.”  
   
Michael rolls his eyes. “Okay, weirdo.”  
   
Luke pulls his own shirt off and lets it fall to the floor so when he follows and steps into Michael, cupping his hands around Michael’s hips, their bare skin can touch. “M’not allowed to like the way you look?”  
   
Michael’s eyes roll again and he wraps his arms around Luke’s neck and pulls him into a kiss instead of answering. It’s another pattern. Luke compliments him, Michael scoffs at the very notion that anyone could find him attractive and changes the subject. Luke likes to think – or at least, he hopes – he’s wearing Michael down, though, slowly chipping away at his insecurities like chiseling words into granite. Luke’s determined to keep at it until Michael believes he’s beautiful. He kisses back instead of pressing the issue, dipping his tongue into Michael’s mouth and letting it play languidly alongside Michael’s.  
   
“Gonna fuck me?” Michael asks, the words a slur against Luke’s lips.  
   
“If you want,” Luke answers. He wants it more than anything. His cock twitches in his jeans in anticipation.  
   
Michael nods. His fingers tangle in Luke’s hair and he bumps their noses together. “Yeah.”  
   
They go slow, one of those we-have-all-the-time-in-the-world things even though they don’t. They have to be up so early, and Ashton will be furious if their performance is shit because they stayed up all night doing this and are exhausted tomorrow. Luke’s  _already_  exhausted. He doesn’t care. Sometimes, this time with Michael is more important than anything else. Not always. They have commitments, responsibilities. Sometimes other things need to come first. Just not tonight. They both need this. Need to feel connected again.  
   
Michael never stops kissing him. Luke opens him up with gentle fingers, pushing into his tight body and rubbing inside until it loosens, and Michael’s lips don’t leave his. Their tongues move together, Michael’s arm around Luke’s neck to keep him there, until Luke can’t feel his mouth anymore and even then he doesn’t stop. He slides into Michael when Michael whispers that it’s enough, and it feels like falling into bed after a long day, warm and soft and familiar. A moan vibrates between them; Luke thinks it was Michael but he isn’t sure.  
   
“Wait,” Michael rasps, suddenly.  
   
Luke’s heart skips a beat. “Are you okay?” he asks quickly, worried.  
   
“Yeah,” Michael breathes, smiling a little and blinking up into Luke’s eyes. Michael always says he never gets tired of staring into them. He reaches up and slides his fingers over Luke’s cheek. “I just. I really, really fucking love you.”  
   
“Oh.” Luke’s heart does something else this time, like a flip or a flutter. “Michael …”  
   
He carefully lowers down to his elbows so they’re as close as they can be, nothing in between them but warm skin and sweat easing the friction of their chests pressed together. He drops his head, pushing his face into Michael’s neck and leaving open-mouthed kisses underneath his ear. Michael’s arms go back around Luke’s neck, one hand’s fingers tangling in his hair. It’s messy right now, from being stuck under a beanie earlier.  
   
“I love you so much,” Luke whispers. He sounds as emotional as Michael did, and he feels it too, in his gut. They don’t get sappy all that often. They don’t have time for it, really. Always running from one thing to the next. So just for this moment, he’s okay with it.  
   
“You do?” Michael asks softly. He knows Luke does. He just needs to hear it, sometimes. Just so his brain doesn’t trick him into believing it isn’t true.  
   
“More than anything, baby,” Luke promises. “More than everything.”  
   
“Okay. Me too.” Michael kisses his cheek and adds, “You can fuck me now.”  
   
Luke laughs, happiness bubbling up out of him. “Just needed to get all that mushy stuff out of the way first?”  
   
Michael shrugs. His shoulder gently bumps into Luke’s chin. “Figured it would work better that way.”  
   
“You’re an idiot,” Luke tells him. What he means, is  _God dammit I love you so much_ , so he says it out loud anyway, even though he already said it a minute ago. Michael never gets tired of hearing it.  
   
“I know.” Michael lightly smacks Luke’s ass. “Can you move please?”  
   
Luke lifts his hips, his cock sliding slowly out of Michael and then back in, and Michael’s eyes flutter closed on a long, low moan that shoots like a taser through Luke’s veins. He never gets bored of this. Every time with Michael feels like the first time all over again. Luke hopes that never, ever changes.  
   
*           *           *


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [warning for minor violence on this one]

It’s cool and cloudy. It’s been raining on and off all morning, but Michael doesn’t mind. It’s very England, for it to be gloomy like this. Michael doesn’t always miss the unrelenting sunshine of L.A., or of Sydney. He’s more indoorsy than Ashton or Calum. Luke is cute in the rain, anyway.  
   
Ashton runs onto the stage before any of them. It’s how they’re planning on doing the entrance in their tour shows too, although usually they’ll have the stage built so Ashton comes in from underneath it; behind the drum kit. That’s how they did it in Japan. This stage wasn’t set up for them, though, so he just goes on from the side. It still works. He grabs his sticks and pounds into the drum kit.  
   
“Ready?” Calum asks, from right next to Michael, speaking over the chords they’re strumming, still out of sight of the crowd.  
   
“Hell yeah. Let’s fuckin’ rock it,” Luke says, grinning at Michael.  
   
Michael runs out first and the others follow. His senses explode, cheers from the crowd, the sight of it stretched back on the lawn, throbbing as a thousand pieces composing one unit like watching an anemone move under water. The roar of their guitars from the speakers. The smell of fresh air and the smoke machine. The cool air on his heated skin. They play  _End Up Here_ first; familiar chords Michael’s known for years feel new every time they play this song. He always loved this one. He remembers Luke convincing him to take the lead on the chorus when they were recording it. Michael doesn’t do that very often. Luke says he has a rougher, punkier voice that fits on certain songs, and Michael believes him because he’d love that to be true.  
   
The set is good. They have pitch issues in a few spots, because the venue isn’t ideal and it’s difficult to hear, but Michael doesn’t imagine anyone cares. They roll through a short catalogue of their hits, the crowd-pleasers, and Michael has a blast. They’re halfway through  _What I Like About You_ , their second to last song, when it happens.  
   
It’s only out of the corner of his eye, that Michael sees it. He doesn’t even really see it. He isn’t focused on Luke, because it happens in the middle of Michael’s solo. In the flurry of noise and colors and flashing lights, Luke just disappears. One second here’s there, and then he’s gone, and for a moment the loss doesn’t register at all. It feels like Michael blinked, and Luke vanished from sight, but he’s only half paying attention and he doesn’t notice right away. His fingers keep moving over the strings of his guitar, he keeps right on singing words he knows by heart. They’ve performed this song so many times.  
   
It’s the change in atmosphere that Michael notices, more than anything else. The drums have stopped. That loss is more pronounced. People are screaming, but suddenly it doesn’t sound like the happy kind of screaming fans do while they play. It sounds panicked; scared. There’s a cloud over everything, but not a real one. Not like the ones in the sky. It’s a  _mood_  cloud, a dark grey overhang that wraps the moment up in tension. Something is wrong.  
   
Michael looks around. His eyes find Calum. He’s not playing anymore either; his bass is hanging, forgotten around his neck and his hands have come up to cover his mouth. He’s staring, horrified, at something just off the edge of the stage. Michael doesn’t understand. His fingers are still strumming over the strings, but he’s the only one now. His mind feels soaked in quicksand – something is happening and he should be understanding it like everyone else is but he’s stuck trailing behind. He can’t reach the moment, can’t catch up to reality.  
   
“Keep back!” an enormous security guard yells at the crowd, using his big arms to pen in several manic girls. They’re all sobbing. Finally, Michael stops playing. The last remnants of the song drift away on a soft echo, lost into mass hysteria.  
   
“Call an ambulance!” somebody else yells.  
   
Another security guard shouts, “Get me a towel!” and then when no one does, he pulls his black t-shirt up over his head and ducks down. Michael can’t see him anymore.  
   
“What the fuck?” Calum’s voice asks, high and squeaky. Full panic mode, dialed up all the way to ten.  
   
Ashton runs past them both, to the edge of the stage, and then jumps off it athletically and he disappears too.  
   
Michael drops his guitar to the ground and follows. Out of nowhere, the slow-motion he’s been stuck in shatters like a car windshield in a head-on. He runs in the direction Ashton just did, and then the bottom falls out underneath him when he leans past the edge and sees. Chaos breaks like thunder.  
   
“Where’s the paramedics?” the shirtless guard is shouting.  
   
“On their way. Is he breathing?” another answers, bending over and partially obstructing Michael’s view.  
   
He sees enough. Luke’s body is motionless, limbs bent at odd angles, cradled in shirtless-guard’s arms. His removed t-shirt is pressed to the side of Luke’s head. It’s damp, red is everywhere. Blood, it’s  _blood_. So much of it. More than there should ever be on a real person. It’s like a war movie. Michael’s heart stops for a few beats and then kicks in again like he’s been electroshocked.  
   
“Oh my God,” Calum breathes. Michael doesn’t know when he walked over, but now he’s right here, grabbing Michael’s arm, squeezing it hard enough to hurt.  
   
“Luke,” Ashton says. He’s in the fray of it; crouched down next to the guard and Luke’s immobile form. His hands touch Luke’s face, and come away covered in scarlet.  
   
People are so loud. Screaming their heads off, tears streaming down their faces. Michael can’t think. It’s way too much noise, he can’t hear the thoughts in his own head. Chaos is an understatement.  
   
“Luke,” Ashton says again. He’s patting Luke’s cheek gently. “Can you hear me? Luke, wake up. You gotta wake up, buddy.”  
   
“He’s out cold,” the security guard says. He squeezes the shirt in his hand; blood oozes from it. “Fuck, this thing is soaked through already.”  
   
Ashton rips his shirt off too, pulling the ruined one away and replacing it with his own. Michael catches just a glimpse, in between, of the wound. It’s bright and shiny, pieces of Luke’s flesh ripped away near his temple, pink exposed underneath. Luke’s wrist is bent, too, Michael notices dully, at a horrible angle. What if it doesn’t heal? What if he can’t play anymore? They can’t be a band without Luke, and Michael doesn’t know how to do anything else.  
   
“Ashton,” Calum croaks, belatedly. Ashton looks up at them, tears and terror on his face, and shakes his head. He looks so small, two meters below them on the ground; so helpless. Michael should be down there. He should be the one pressing his shirt into Luke’s head, soaking up the blood that pours from him, holding the life inside him as it drains out. He can’t move, though.  
   
“Make way!” a female voice booms from off to the left.  
   
Paramedics dressed in blue descend on the scene – three of them, two females and a male. A bright red stretcher comes with them.  
   
“Is he conscious?” the second woman asks, kneeling next to Luke and putting her hands on him. She’s so rough; she’s going to hurt him.  
   
“No,” the security guard answers.  
   
“Set him down, we’ve got it,” the male medic says, and the guard does, letting the man help him extract Luke’s body from his arms and laying his head gently on the ground. The other medics swarm in, a frenzy of activity as they poke at him and wrap his head.  
   
“Be careful,” Ashton begs, sounding wrecked. “Please, he’s important.”  
   
Tears spring to Michael’s eyes. Important doesn’t even begin to cover the spread. Luke is everything. They should know that, they should know they have to work harder than they ever have before to bring Luke back. Michael should tell them. He doesn’t remember how to talk. If fear can cause heart-failure, they’re going to need a second ambulance for Calum. His nails are digging so hard into Michael’s arm where he’s squeezing it, the skin feels like it’s broken. Michael would be alright with that. Luke is bleeding, so Michael should be too.  
   
“Out of the way,” the first woman says to Ashton, who’s still just sitting on the ground holding his own blood-soaked shirt.  
   
“He’s gonna be okay, right?” Ashton asks desperately.  
   
“Sir, you need to let us do our job.”  
   
The guard who called the ambulance reaches down and picks Ashton up off the ground like he weighs no more than a toddler and forcibly removes him from the immediate vicinity.  
   
“No, just tell me he’s gonna be okay!” Ashton cries, fighting, but it’s useless. The guard is more than twice his size. The two of them disappear. Michael doesn’t know where they go.  
   
Luke is dragged onto a stretcher and strapped in, lifted up and wheeled away, and Michael breathes heavily and watches him go. When he can’t see Luke or the paramedics anymore, hands are touching his shoulders – much smaller hands than Calum’s – and nudging him gently. Michael doesn’t resist. He lets himself be corralled off the stage, into the area behind where they sat before their set began. Luke kissed him, just over there, by an extra stage box. Promised him it was going to be an amazing show. Talked about last night, about how good it was, his eyes sparkling and a shy smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Luke is always so bashful about it, when they talk about it anywhere other than in a bedroom. He’s so shy and sweet and self-conscious, where Michael is brash and loud and tactless. They’re perfect opposites, filling in each other’s gaps, and then in other ways they’re just exactly the same. Sometimes Michael can look at Luke and know exactly what he’s thinking, because the thoughts are mirrored in his own head.  
   
Michael woke up this morning with Luke’s arms around him, his head tucked under Luke’s chin, Luke’s soft, even breathing a soothing metronome that lulled Michael right back to sleep the moment his eyes had opened, even though the alarm was going and they were supposed to have risen ten minutes earlier. Luke’s  _I love you_  was pressed into Michael’s forehead, smooth lips and scratchy morning voice. Michael’s was unspoken. He’d kissed the skin underneath his mouth, somewhere near Luke’s clavicle, and knew Luke heard the words even though Michael didn’t say them out loud.  
   
“There’s a car coming ‘round,” a male voice is saying, somewhere near-by.  
   
“Where’s Ashton?” Calum asks, frantic.  
   
“Guys!” Ashton calls, from far away, and then he’s next to them, pulling them roughly into a three-person hug. Michael doesn’t hug back. His arms don’t work anymore.  
   
“Ash, he …” Calum mumbles. Michael  _feels_  the words, feels the rumble of them. Calum’s chest is pushing into his shoulder. Ashton’s arms are around them both, holding their bodies close together.  
   
“It’s okay. He’s gonna be okay,” Ashton promises. It’s his role. He doesn’t know that any more than they do, and he’s just as upset and scared, but he still reassures them. He’s still perpetually the big brother.  
   
“What happened?” Calum asks. “I didn’t see.”  
   
“He just fell.” Finally Ashton lets go, but one arm stays around Michael’s shoulders. Michael looks down at the bare chest he’s pressed against – Ashton’s skin is covered in Luke’s blood. “I don’t even know. He was there, and then he was just gone. It happened so fast, he … he must have misjudged the edge.”  
   
“It looked so bad,” Calum whispers.  
   
Someone whimpers, small and pathetic like a dog who’s just been stepped on. As an afterthought, Michael realizes it was him.  
   
“He’ll be fine,” Ashton soothes. He wraps himself around Michael again, talking gently into his hair. This time, Michael clings. Like a starfish, like a sloth, like something that winds itself around a stationary object and sticks like suction cups. His face goes into the hard muscle of Ashton’s bare shoulder; damp skin, sweat and blood. It’s something tactile, something for Michael to anchor himself to. “Michael, it’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”  
   
“Boys.” It’s Dave, the head of their own security. “There’s a car to take you to the hospital.”  
   
His thick, rolling, Sunderland accent is so familiar, but right now it sounds miles away and foreign. Hands are guiding him again, Ashton’s this time, so Michael just goes. He’s lead like a horse, brainless and following, numb to it all. It’s so quick, to be numb already, but there was never pain. Michael wasn’t ever scared. He was only empty.  
   
“They’ll patch him up,” Ashton says softly, in the backseat of a speeding SUV. He won’t let go of Michael. Calum is across from them, his arms wrapped across his own chest and his dark eyes swimming with tears. “He’ll be good as new, alright? You’ll see.”  
   
He can’t know that, so it doesn’t help.  
   
*           *           *


	4. Chapter 4

The driver goes as fast as the speed limits will allow, and a few times significantly faster, but traffic lights get in the way and the ambulance is long gone ahead of them. The relatively short journey feels like it lasts for hours. Calum really isn’t sure how long it actually takes. Maybe twenty minutes? Or maybe a week and a half, hell, what does time mean anymore? Luke is the only thing any of them can think of. Ashton looks like he’s going to throw up. Michael looks worse. Calum can’t see his own face in the absence of anything reflective but he’s sure he isn’t fairing any better. His stomach hasn’t stopped churning since Luke disappeared off the edge of the stage. Calum saw it happen, but it was too fast, he still isn’t sure exactly  _what_  he saw. Luke fell, that’s all he knows, and then he was gone, lying unconscious on the ground below while pandemonium erupted around them. Calum is going to have nightmares about it for probably the rest of his life.  
   
Luke is gone by the time they finally arrive at the hospital, already in a room somewhere in the building. They’re ushered to a small waiting area, just cold, hard, plastic chairs and old magazines and soulless motel art on the walls, and they’re left alone. Calum doesn’t know why they’re alone. They  _shouldn’t_  be. Their tour manager, Dave,  _somebody_  should be here with them, but no one is. Probably those people are all handling the media circus that no doubt has erupted in the half hour since the indecent. There were cameras everywhere – the official event kind, and from cell phones of audience members. By now thousands of people have seen Luke fall. The media must be losing its collective mind. Calum doesn’t envy the members of their tour family who’ve been left to deal with all that. In that sense, he’s glad they’re here alone. At least they’re safe here, away from all of it.  
   
Instead, though, they’re just left to marinate in their own thoughts. Calum can’t sit down, he just paces back and forth and his mind races with him, bouncing all over the place like the ball in a pinball machine. He can’t focus on anything, can’t get his hands to stop shaking. He’s never been this scared before.  
   
“Can you put a shirt on, maybe? You’re in a hospital for Christ’s sake,” a snippy voice says suddenly.  
   
They all look up, at a nurse with wiry grey hair and purple glasses. She’s glaring at Ashton, as she walks past them, and then disappears muttering under her breath about  _disrespectful youth_  into a room at the end of the hall.  
   
Calum glances over in surprise – he hadn’t realized Ashton was still topless. The look on Ashton’s face suggests he’d forgotten himself. “Fuck,” he mutters, looking around aimlessly for something to cover himself with, because he doesn’t  _have_ a shirt. The one he’d been wearing is back at the venue, discarded on the ground in front of the stage, soaked in Luke’s blood. It’s probably in a trash bin by now, wrapped in biohazard plastic. Or maybe bagged as evidence. Do the police investigate accidents like this? Calum doesn’t know.  
   
“Here.” By some stroke of luck they don’t really deserve, Calum was wearing two shirts today – a white, long-sleeved one with a black short-sleeve over it. He tugs the black one off over his head and hands it to Ashton.  
   
Ashton smiles weakly at him and pulls the garment on. It hangs loosely on him – Ashton rarely wears baggy clothing anymore lately, much more inclined to fitted shirts, so it doesn’t look right.  
   
“What do you think they’re doing?” Calum asks, finally voicing his thoughts now that their silence has been interrupted.  
   
“I have no idea.” Ashton exhales shakily and drags his fingers through his messy hair, pushing his sand-colored curls back off his forehead. “Some kind of surgery, I guess. To stitch his head back up.”  
   
“His wrist looked broken.”  
   
“Yeah. That’s probably nothing, though, in comparison. That, they can just slap a cast on.”  
   
“Look, it was just … I mean, he was knocked out, because he hit his head,” Calum reasons, trying to calm himself with logic. It doesn’t really work. “But that’s fine, right? I mean, that happens all the time? He’ll have to recuperate for a while, sure, but he’ll be fine eventually. Right?”  
   
Ashton presses his lips together so hard they go white, and doesn’t answer.  
   
Michael hasn’t spoken since they got here. Calum doesn’t know why he didn’t notice until just now, but he didn’t. He looks over, and Michael’s curled up in a chair, his legs tucked up into his chest and his arms wrapped around them, and he’s staring at the floor in front of him. He doesn’t look sad, or scared. He looks empty. His expression is blank, his skin paler than normal and his eyes dark and haunted. He looks like his head is somewhere else, miles away.  
   
Ashton looks, too, when he notices the direction Calum’s staring in. He frowns, and softly asks, “Michael?”  
   
He has to repeat it three times before Michael looks up, slow and confused, like it’s taking him a minute to remember what the word means even though it’s his own name. “Yeah?” he answers, his unused voice scratchy.  
   
Now that Calum thinks about it, Michael has been silent since long before they got to the hospital. Calum can’t remember Michael speaking since the venue. Since Luke fell.  
   
“Are you okay?” Ashton asks. It’s such a stupid thing to ask, because of course Michael isn’t okay. But Calum doesn’t know what else Ashton should have said.  
   
Michael presses his lips together and looks down the hall, toward where they think Luke might be. He just stares, for a long time, and neither Calum nor Ashton says anything.  
   
Finally Michael’s head turns back, but he doesn’t look at them. He goes right back to staring at his knees, and his voice is low and even and completely detached when he says, “He might be dead.”  
   
Ashton gasps, and Calum’s gut twists painfully around itself. He doesn’t know how to react to that – to any of it.  
   
“Mike,” Ashton mumbles. “He’s gonna – ”  
   
“You don’t know that,” Michael argues, toxically calm. “He wasn’t moving. His head was all bashed in. Blood everywhere. He might be dead back there. Maybe they just haven’t told us yet.”  
   
“Fuck, Michael,  _don’t_ ,” Calum whispers. It’s too horrible to even think about, he doesn’t know why Michael is doing this.  
   
Ashton goes to him, sitting in the chair on his left and wrapping his arm around Michael’s shoulders again, pulling him in. Michael lets himself be tipped against Ashton’s chest like a puppet, but his eyes are cold and the line of his mouth is flat and emotionless. He might as well be dead himself, the way he looks right now. Calum has never seen him like this. Michael looks like someone put a syringe to his mouth and sucked his soul out. He looks like a patient from a psychiatric hospital after a lobotomy – an empty shell, a body existing with nothing left inside.  
   
“You know what? I didn’t tell him I love him today,” Michael muses casually, almost as if he finds it funny.  
   
Ashton gapes at Calum, his mouth hanging halfway open and his eyes scared again. Calum shakes his head and can’t help. He has no idea. No idea what’s going on in Michael’s head; what they’re supposed to do about it. If there’s anything at all they  _can_ do.  
   
“You’ll get to tell him again,” Ashton says eventually. His voice shakes.  
   
Michael shrugs. “Maybe.” He sits back up, extracting himself from Ashton’s arms. Then he stands up and just walks away, slow and meandering like he’s a zombie. Like he’s been possessed. He disappears around a different corner, and a small, unhappy sound draws Calum’s attention. Ashton is bent over, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands covering his mouth. There are tears in his eyes; his brow wrinkled in a deep frown.  
   
Calum sits next to him and blinks back tears too. He wishes his mum was here. Or Luke’s mum, or Feldy, or  _someone_. Someone grown up, someone who feels like family. He needs an adult to tell him where to go next; he’s technically an adult himself but he doesn’t feel like one right now. He feels like a lost, scared little kid. Calum isn’t equipped with the necessary skills to deal with anything that’s happening right now. He certainly isn’t equipped to help Ashton through it, when Ashton is the one who always helps everyone else when things get bad. Calum knows it’s shitty. He knows it’s selfish. But Ashton is his rock. He’s  _everyone’s_ rock. It’s always been like that. He isn’t allowed to break down. Ashton is the one who cleans up the mess when other people break down.  
   
He reaches over to rub Ashton’s back, trying to help even though he doesn’t know how, and Ashton crumbles, leaning into Calum and burying his face in Calum’s shoulder. Calum gets his arms around his best friend and hugs him. Ashton’s always the strong one, always the one who takes care of the rest of them. Calum can’t take seeing him break like this; can’t take knowing how hard Ashton’s trying  _not_ to break because he, too, knows he’s the one who’s always supposed to keep it together. It makes Calum feel lower than dirt for wishing Ashton was stronger. It isn’t fair, to put that pressure on him, and Calum knows they all do it. They constantly expect Ashton to have all the answers, to be able to withstand anything life throws at them, because he’s older, because he’s always been their leader even though Luke is the frontman on a technicality. It took a tragedy for Calum to realize how unfair they’ve all been.  
   
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, helpless. He rubs Ashton’s arm and bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to hurt, just trying to keep from dissolving into tears too. “Ash, I’m sorry.”  
   
“You didn’t do anything.”  
   
Calum wants to say so many things. Mostly that he regrets, suddenly, the way they’ve always treated him. They  _knew_  the kind of life Ashton came from. They knew his dad took off, and Ashton was left with a single mother to help raise his two younger siblings even though he was still a kid himself. They knew what that pressure did to him when he was growing up. And then they all did the same thing. They all expected him to become the band dad; to keep right on living the same hell he’d grown up in, where he always has to be the responsible one, the one looking after everyone else. But he can’t say any of it. He can’t admit he knows they did that. Ashton would hate him forever.  
   
“He’s gonna be fine,” Ashton breathes; probably for himself more than for Calum. He burrows into Calum’s chest like he’s trying to hide there, trying to escape from everything. Calum hugs him so tightly, resting his forehead on Ashton’s messy curls, and wishes he could snap his fingers and take them away from this place. He wishes he could make everything better, and he can’t.  
   
He doesn’t know for sure if Ashton’s talking about Luke or Michael, but it doesn’t matter. “Yeah, he is.” The words taste bitter on his tongue, like lies always do.

* * *

 

There are over twenty missed calls on Michael’s phone.  
   
He pulls it out of his back pocket and checks it, just for something to do, once he gets outside and finds a railing to lean on, around the back of the building next to a group of people smoking cigarettes. They’re all patients, in thin white gowns and robes and slippers, a few of them hooked up to mobile IVs on those metal things that look like coat-racks on wheels. They’re in here, sick and dying, some of them probably of cancer from the tar in their shrivelled, blackened lungs, and they’re still out here having their afternoon smoke. Laughing in the face of the force that’s going to rip them from this world – or maybe just tragically resigned to their fate. Michael doesn’t know. Either way, when they get out of here, he’s finding every one of Calum’s cigarettes and flushing them down the toilet. And if Cal goes out and buys more, Michael will flush those too. He doesn’t give a fuck if Calum hates him for it; Cal is his oldest friend in the world, and Michael is  _not_ letting him end up in place like this, with yellowed fingers and leather skin.  
   
He scrolls through the list on the screen; cracked from when Michael dropped it a week ago. He needs to get a new one, but hasn’t had time yet. Most of them are from his mum, and from Liz. They must have been watching. Or maybe not, maybe they just heard what happened. Either way they’ve both been phoning him nonstop, and Michael just stares at their logged numbers and can’t think straight. What is he supposed to say, if he calls either of them back? He has no information to give them. No one does. At this point, he doesn’t know any more about what happened than they do. He can’t tell them not to worry, that Luke is okay. Because he isn’t. It would all be pointless, false appeasement, so what would be the use in any of it? Telling someone  _everything’s fine_  when it isn’t doesn’t help anything.  
   
Then his phone starts ringing. It’s on silent because of the performance so it doesn’t make an actual noise, but the screen lights up and a call comes in.  _Liz_ is the name on the I.D. Michael swallows and closes his eyes. Why has no one else contacted her? Her son might be dead right now, and she’s phoning  _Michael_ , which means no one from their camp has let her know what’s going on? What kind of soulless people do they work with, who would just leave a mother in the dark halfway around the world after her son fell off a stage and was rushed to the hospital? Michael wishes he had the energy to phone their manager and start screaming. He doesn’t, though, so he reluctantly takes the call.  
   
“Liz,” he says. His voice is weak, wavering,  _pathetic._  
   
“Oh, thank God,” she whimpers; she sounds like she’s fully in tears. “Michael, what’s going on?”  
   
“I don’t know,” he whispers.  
   
“No, please, you have to talk to me,” she begs. “I’ve been calling everyone I can think of, no one will answer! We’re going crazy over here. What happened? Where are you, is he okay? Is he  _alive_?”  
   
“Fuck,” Michael mumbles, covering his eyes with his free hand. He will  _not_  cry. He can’t. Not now, not when she needs him to be brave.  
   
“Michael, he’s my son,  _please_.”  
   
“I don’t know. He fell off the stage, he was bleeding, I don’t … I didn’t see it happen. We’re at a hospital. They haven’t told us anything yet. I’m so sorry.”  
   
Liz just sobs, and Michael clenches his teeth and ends the call without saying another word. He has nothing to tell her. With madly trembling hands, he manages to send a text to Zoe –  _somebody FUCKING call Luke’s family and tell them what’s going on_ – and then shuts his phone right off and puts it back in his pocket. He can’t talk to his own mum right now. He couldn’t bear to hear her voice.  
   
“There you are,” Ashton’s says, from behind him.  
   
Michael doesn’t want to turn around. It might be bad news. A sound escapes his throat, small and scared and pitiful, but he doesn’t move.  
   
“Mikey.” Ashton’s hand touches his back, and Michael flinches away from it. “A doctor wants to talk to us.”  
   
“Is he awake?” Michael forces himself to ask.  
   
“I don’t know. They didn’t tell us yet, I left to find you.”  
   
“That was stupid,” Michael says unfeelingly.  
   
Ashton is quiet for a moment. Michael waits to be shouted at. He would deserve it. Ashton doesn’t, though. He hugs around Michael’s shoulders, resting his forehead against the side of Michael’s face. “It’s okay,” he whispers, sympathetic in a way Michael doesn’t deserve after how he’s been acting. “I know. I’m scared too. Let’s go upstairs, alright? Hear what they’ve got to say before we jump to conclusions.”  
   
Michael squeezes his eyes shut tight to keep the tears at bay.  
   
“Cal is up there all alone,” Ashton continues, gentle and understanding, but clearly not willing to take  _no_ for an answer. “We can’t leave him. Come with me.”  
   
Michael nods, and lets himself be led back inside.

*           *           *


	5. Chapter 5

Calum is standing with the doctor, exactly where Ashton left them minutes ago when he went to find where Michael had wandered off to. The doctor is looking at his watch, like he has somewhere else to be and he’s annoyed that this is taking so long. Ashton bristles at it, even though he’s just interpreting body-language and might be wrong.

“Well?” Michael asks, as they walk up. No preamble necessary, Michael just wants to know. Ashton’s glad, he doesn’t want to be kept in the dark any longer either.

Calum turns to them with his brown eyes swimming in unshed tears. Ashton’s heartrate speeds up. “He’s in a coma.” Calum looks moments away from a meltdown. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait. I had to know.”  
   
Michael stops walking abruptly, like his feet were just glued to the floor. “ _What_?” he breathes.  
   
Ashton covers his mouth with his hands. “Oh my God.”  
   
“It isn’t as bad as it sounds. Temporary states of unconsciousness are common in head injuries, it’s the body’s way of preserving itself so it can heal,” the doctor says. He reaches a hand out towards Ashton – maybe surveying the three of them and deciding Ashton looks the least likely to break down in tears an any given moment. Ashton certainly doesn’t  _feel_  that way. “I’m Dr. Patel, I’ll be looking after your friend now that he’s stabilized.”  
   
Ashton shakes the man’s hand with a quivering one of his own, vaguely taking in short brown hair and skin a bit darker than Calum’s and kind eyes that are wrinkled at the edges like he’s spent a lot of time smiling in the maybe forty years he’s been alive. “You weren’t working on him before?”  
   
“An ER doctor stitched his head, and put a cast on his left wrist. It’s broken, although not badly. I looked at the x-rays, that should heal up just fine.”  
   
“What about …” Calum doesn’t need to elaborate. They all know what he’s referring to.  
   
“You’re … not his family, I guess,” Dr. Patel says. He looks the three of them up and down, his gaze lingering a little longer on Michael, frowning in worry.  
   
Ashton looks too – Michael is staring straight ahead, that empty, haunted look back on his face. He looks like a ghost, and Ashton doesn’t know how to help. If he and Calum are handling this badly, Michael isn’t handling it at all. He’s just gone blank, dead inside.  
   
“They’re in Australia,” Ashton says, after a moment spent considering how best to deal with this. He knows about hospital policies of not releasing information to people who aren’t blood-relations. And they’re not, the three of them, but at the same time they  _are_. They don’t have the same parents, but they’re tied together by things more important than DNA. “We’re his band. We’re in a band.”  
   
“I know,” the doctor says. He presses his lips together for a moment. “There are rules, but … I suppose since no one else is here. Is his family coming?”  
   
“I don’t think anyone’s even told them what happened,” Ashton says, just realizing that himself. Fuck, he hopes someone has. Maybe in the fray, no one thought of it. He still doesn’t understand why they’re here alone. Someone should be here with them.  
   
The doctor nods thoughtfully. “Mr. Hemmings has suffered a fairly severe fracture to his frontal bone. He’s lucky, actually, a bit lower and it would have been the temporal bone and we might not have been able to – ”  
   
“Don’t,” Ashton interrupts, with a worried glance in Michael’s direction. Michael doesn’t even react. “Just … tell us what happened.”  
   
“He lost a lot of blood. But he’s stable, now.”  
   
“But he’s in a coma,” Ashton says. The words feel sharp, like unimaginable tragedy, even though the doctor said it isn’t so bad.  
   
“For now. As much as you can, don’t panic about that. There is swelling and bleeding in his brain. His body has shut down so it can repair itself, like I said. I know it’s a scary word, but it isn’t as bad as you’re thinking. It’s to be expected with injuries like this. This is normal.”  
   
“Is he gonna wake up?” Calum asks.  
   
The doctor hesitates, and Ashton’s stomach clenches. “Most likely.”  
   
“Most  _likely_?” Ashton repeats. He feels sick. “Meaning maybe  _not_? You said it was normal!”  
   
Michael makes a small, sad noise but doesn’t chime in.  
   
“It is. I just can’t say for sure,” the doctor says, being careful about it. “Brains are tricky that way. We never know how they’re going to respond, because they’re all different. But probably, yes he will. Once the swelling in his brain goes down. He’s young, he’s healthy, I see no reason for this not to be temporary. I just … can’t say for sure.”  
   
“And then what?” Calum asks. It takes a moment for Ashton to figure out what he’s referring to, but then the realization hits. Calum means the possibility of permanent damage, the possibility that when Luke wakes up, he won’t be completely alright. The idea alone leaves a pit it Ashton’s stomach. It’s a thought that hadn’t crossed Ashton’s mind. He’d been operating under the assumption that this would be a terrible week, or two, and then everything would go back to normal as if it never happened. The idea that it might not be so simple is terrifying. He can’t even look at Michael.  
   
“I don’t know,” the doctor says, regretfully. “We just won’t know anything until he wakes up, I’m sorry. Right now all we can do is wait.”  
   
“Can we see him?” Michael asks, finally locating his voice. Ashton nods in agreement and looks at the doctor.  
   
“Of course.” He motions to someone at the nurses’ station just down the hall. “I’ll have someone show you to his room. I spoke on the phone with your manager just before I looked in on Mr. Hemmings, she says she’s on her way.”  
   
“Zoe?” Calum asks.  
   
Dr. Patel nods. “And see that someone contacts his family, we need an immediate family member to sign some … things.”  
   
He smiles at them sadly and then makes his exit, and Ashton doesn’t say it out loud but he knows  _things_  means the order not to keep Luke alive on life-support, if he doesn’t wake up. He can’t even think about it. A male orderly leads them down a few hallways to a white door with a metal number  _27_ on it, and then leaves them with instructions to holler if they need anything. Ashton assumes they aren’t actually supposed to  _holler_ , but either way he’s glad the man leaves.  
   
The room isn’t anything out of the ordinary. Ashton hasn’t spent a lot of time in hospitals, other than when he was in one last year to have his appendix removed, but this room is what he’d expect. Everything is white or gray. The lights are glaring. Machines make soft noises. The only difference is Luke. He’s lying in a bed in the middle of the room, and he’s so big, the biggest of all of them with his height and his broad shoulders, but right now he looks tiny. So broken and helpless. He isn’t moving. There are tubes in his nose. Oxygen, Ashton supposes, since he’s breathing on his own. His head is bandaged heavily so they can’t see the wound, but his face is bruised, dark purple blotches spreading across his forehead and down his cheek. One wrist is set in an off-white cast. His skin is pale and sallow, his cheeks look hollow as if he hasn’t eaten in weeks even though this all only happened a few hours ago. It feels longer than that. It feels like a nightmare they’ve been living for weeks.  
   
It’s more than unnerving to see him like this. Usually Luke is such a force of life. Usually he never stops bouncing around and talking and singing. He’s an overgrown five-year-old. They’ve all had to yell at him to shut up at one point or another, when they’re trying to sleep or read or just enjoy some rare silence and Luke is wandering around the house or bus or backstage, belting Ed Sheeran incessantly. He’s single-handedly made all of them despise  _Lego House_.  
   
Yesterday, Ashton would have paid gratuitous amounts of money to never hear that song again. Now, he’d give anything to hear Luke’s voice sliding through the melody, the runs he does when he’s pretending to be an R &B singer, showcasing vocal talent that their own music never quite manages to capitalise on. He’s a much better singer than most people will ever know, because pop punk doesn’t call for runs or high notes. Ashton remembers back in Sydney, it was the first thing that struck him about Luke, when he met them. How talented he was. He was so small, then; shy and unsure, always looking up at people through his eyelashes instead of facing them straight on, all gangly, uncoordinated limbs and habitually chewing on his bottom lip and letting Michael speak for him. He was like a baby deer, and Michael was protective of him to the point of unnecessary aggression. But then he’d open his mouth to sing, and he’d leave everyone speechless.  
   
“God,” Calum whispers beside him.  
   
“He’s gonna be okay,” Ashton says, like a parrot who’s only been taught one phrase to repeat over and over. It’s a reflex, at this point. He’s said it so many times in the last few hours. He should just stop – it isn’t helping anything. Saying it doesn’t make it true.  
   
“Sometimes when people hit their heads bad, they can’t, like, hold a pencil. Or feed themselves or ties their shoes,” Calum worries, in a squeaky voice that doesn’t sound like his. “Fine-motor skills, or whatever they’re called. What if … Ash, what if he can’t play anymore? What the fuck are we gonna – ?”  
   
“Don’t do that,” Ashton soothes. He moves in closer and spreads his palm out between Calum’s shoulder blades. He’s breathing so fast; Ashton can feel lungs expanding and contracting under his hand as Calum panics. “Don’t think like that, okay? We don’t know anything yet. There’s no point in freaking out until we know more.”  
   
Calum just shakes his head, but he doesn’t continue.  
   
Ashton glances past him to find Michael. They’re all terrified right now, but Ashton knows his job. He lost it, earlier, when Michael took off, but he can’t do that again. Taking care of these two is his business. It’s always been that way. When he first joined the band, it was his job to take three kids who always just wanted to goof off and turn them into a band people would take seriously. He did that, and look where they are now. He can do this too. He can push his own fears aside and take care of Calum and Michael. It’s something he’s been doing his whole life; ignoring his own needs in favor of others’. He doesn’t even mind. Maybe it’s his purpose.  
   
“He’s gonna wake up, Michael,” Ashton says softly. “The doctor said so. This is all temporary. He’ll wake up in a few days and then everything will go back to the way it was.”  
   
In the trance that hasn’t lifted since Luke fell, Michael wanders like a zombie in the direction of the bed. Ashton’s heart races, watching Michael sit on the edge of it, next to Luke’s hip, and just look at him. Slowly, he reaches out with trembling fingers and touches Luke’s cheek.  
   
“He’s warm,” Michael whispers.  
   
“He isn’t dead,” Ashton reminds him; reminds them all.  
   
“It feels like he is,” Calum mumbles. Ashton hopes it was too quiet for Michael to hear.  
   
“Can you guys go, for a minute?”  
   
Ashton shakes his head, even though Michael isn’t facing him and can’t see. “We’re in this together. You shouldn’t be alone, none of us should.”  
   
He expects Michael to argue. Michael  _always_  argues. But this time he doesn’t. He just picks up Luke’s uninjured hand, where it’s resting on the bed beside his body, a heart-rate monitor clipped to one of his fingers. Michael brings it up to his own face and kisses it, resting his lips against Luke’s knuckles.  
   
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into Luke’s skin.  
   
Ashton doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for, and he doesn’t ask. Calum sniffles and Ashton’s arm goes around him automatically, squeezing his shoulders in a way he hopes is comforting, and then letting go and going to Michael. It feels like a balancing act, trying to comfort them both at once. Ashton can’t look at Luke anymore. He can’t let himself fall into the pit of despair Calum and Michael are stuck in right now. It’s his job to pull them out, not to crumble along-side them. He sits next to Michael and pulls him into a hug. Michael falls against him, maybe too exhausted to fight it. Michael’s face is damp when he leans on Ashton’s shoulder, but he makes no noise.  
   
“One day,” Ashton tells him gently, smoothing Michael’s messy blue hair back, “we’re all gonna look back on this and remember how shitty it was, but it won’t hurt like this. He’ll be fine. He’s gonna wake up, and he’s gonna get better, and we’ll go back on tour and we’ll get to joke with the audiences about how much it sucked when Luke fell and cracked his head open.”  
   
“The tour,” Calum says, a hand coming up to cover his mouth, like he’d only just remembered. “We’re gonna have to cancel it. So many people have tickets.”  
   
Ashton tries to smile at him. “That doesn’t matter. People will understand. I bet  _we love you Luke_ is trending on Twitter right now.”  
   
Calum’s eyebrows stitch together anyway in a deep frown. He joins them, standing right in front of Ashton and Michael and putting a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Michael reaches out with an arm and wraps it around Calum’s waist, pulling him in closer, and Calum bends down and rests his face on top of Michael’s head.  
   
“It’s okay, Mikey,” he whispers.  
   
The door squeaks as it opens, and Zoe bursts into the room, brown hair a mess and her eyes red like she’s been crying. “Boys,” she sighs, rushing over to them. “I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have been left here alone. It was such a mess, no one thought … I just talked to his doctor again, he won’t wake up?”  
   
“For now,” Ashton says.  
   
“Gosh.” She covers her face and shakes her head, and then gives her whole body a little shake, like she’s trying to round up control over her emotions so she can do her job. “Okay. I talked to Liz, too, they’re getting on a flight later today.” She glances around the three of them, still entangled in each other’s arms, at Luke’s unmoving form. Her lip quivers and she turns instantly back away. “I’m organizing everything, don’t worry. I’ve got you hotel rooms nearby, only two so far, though, the place is full. I’ll get a third one as soon as I can.”  
   
“Two is fine,” Calum says, and Ashton nods his agreement. Michael shouldn’t be alone.  
   
“Do you want to go, now? I’ve got some forms to sign, I think, and I’ve got to figure out where his family will stay, and then there’s a press conference later, and …” all at once she runs out of breath on a sob, and tears stream down her flushed cheeks. She’s overwhelmed, and Ashton’s heart breaks for her. At least all they have to do is sit here and be sad. She has to handle everything else.  
   
“Zo,” he says, softly, holding out a hand and inviting her into their group hug.  
   
“Oh.” She exhales shakily and lets him pull her in, hugging one of her small arms around Ashton and one around Calum, breathing heavily. Then she pulls herself back together and moves away. She doesn’t have the luxury of breaking down, like they do. Her job is to keep everything moving. “I can have a car pick you up, if you’d like to …”  
   
“We’re staying,” Michael mumbles, his face still against Ashton’s neck. “I’m not leaving him.”  
   
“Okay.” Zoe nods and sniffs. “Okay. I’ll come back for you in a while, once I’ve …” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She just whimpers, on a teary sob she’s trying desperately to hold in, and then disappears back out the door. It swings slowly shut behind her.  
   
“What the fuck do we do now,” Calum asks helplessly; not really a question, but a declaration of the mess they’re in.  
   
Ashton doesn’t know.  
   
*           *           *


	6. Chapter 6

Luke is in a coma for five more days.  
   
His family arrives during the second day, having survived the torturously long flight from Sydney to London and then the hour drive to Norwich. Michael knew they were coming because Zoe said so, but he didn’t know exactly when. They just appear, at the end of the hall, in a bustle of bulky coats to protect them against the damp English air when they’re used to dry Sydney heat and dark circles under their eyes and tight, drawn expressions. Liz’s eyes are puffy. Michael wonders if she’s stopped crying since Saturday. He hasn’t cried once. Not one single tear. He isn’t fighting it on purpose, to appear strong or stoic. He isn’t that vain. Typical masculinity isn’t important to him. It never has been. The tears just won’t come. Calum and Ashton have. But Michael can’t.  
   
They haven’t really left the hospital, other than to sleep. Michael didn’t want to leave even for that. He wanted to sleep on the lounge in the waiting area where they’ve been living – or, hell, even on the floor in Luke’s room. Just in case Luke woke up in the night, he wanted to be here. Luke shouldn’t be alone when he wakes up. But they wouldn’t let him. There are cots here for spouses or parents to sleep on if they don’t want to go home, Michael knows there are. His dad was sick once, when he was maybe 12, and he stayed at Cal’s house for a few days because his mum slept at the hospital. Those are for family, though, a snippy nurse informs him.  _Michael is family_ , Ashton had argued, but she’d looked him up and down and concluded that, no, he wasn’t. Bandmates aren’t family, she said. She isn’t wrong, in the technical sense. Even if Michael could tell her about his other relationship with Luke, it wouldn’t have helped. They’re not married. They aren’t common-law. They aren’t anything. They’re two bandmates who have sex with each other sometimes. It doesn’t matter that Michael loves him more than everything in the whole world. That doesn’t make Michael a person who’s allowed to sleep on a hospital floor.  
   
So they went in shifts. Michael didn’t have to insist someone be here at all times in case Luke woke up; Calum and Ashton agreed with him. Somebody sits beside Luke’s bed at all times, and they rotate going to the hotel to sleep for an hour or two and then rushing back. None of them sleep much anyway. Michael doesn’t know how it was worked out that they’re allowed to stay in Luke’s room at all hours of the night, way past when regular visiting hours are over. Zoe must have threatened to sue somebody. She’s tiny but she can be formidable when she needs to. When all this is over, Michael is going to send her the mother of all fruit baskets as a thank you for everything she’s done.  
   
Calum is taking his turn at the hotel when Luke’s family arrives. Michael and Ashton are in the waiting chairs again – Dr. Patel is in with Luke right now, checking his vital signs, and whatever else it is doctors do to make sure someone in a coma is still alive. He doesn’t look alive, anymore, even though it’s only been two days. His skin has gone grey. Michael hates looking at him, but he sits there anyway, in a hard plastic chair beside Luke’s bed, holding his cold hand, talking to him, willing him to wake up. So far it hasn’t done any good.  
   
“Boys,” Luke’s father calls – quietly. He has the decorum to remember that they’re in a hospital and there is a certain acceptable way to behave. Michael would have just shouted.  
   
Ashton stands up as the four of them rush over – Liz and Andy in front with Jack and Ben trailing right after them. Liz immediately pulls Ashton into a hug, that he returns as tightly as if she was his own mother. Michael talked to  _his_  own mother, yesterday. He told her what had happened; what was happen _ing_. She cried, and Michael said he loved her and hung up before her tears could get to him.  
   
“Any news?” Liz asks desperately, letting go of Ashton but keeping her hands on his shoulders. Her hair is a mess and she looks more exhausted than Michael feels. He bets she didn’t sleep at all on the airplane. He wouldn’t have.  
   
Ashton shakes his head. “The doctor’s with him right now, that’s why we’re out here, but … he’s just the same. His vitals are fine. I don’t know what that means but people keep saying it. I guess it means he’s alive. He just won’t wake up.”  
   
Liz presses her lips together on a whimper and turns into her husband.  
   
“I’m sorry,” Ashton mumbles.  
   
“It isn’t your fault, son,” Andy says.  
   
“One of us has always been here,” Ashton offers, as if he thinks it’s his fault anyway and wants to make it right. “We took sleeping in turns, that’s where Cal is right now. If Luke woke up, we didn’t want him to be by himself.”  
   
“He’s lucky to have you.” Andy smiles weakly, over the top of Liz’s head. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.  
   
“Hey Mike.” Jack sits next to Michael and reaches over, tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder. Michael hates that nickname. He always has. “You okay?”  
   
“Yeah,” Michael hears himself answer.  
   
Jack was a bit like an older brother to him, too, once upon a time. Right now, Michael can’t even look at him. He looks way too much like Luke.  
   
His voice seems to snap Liz out of her own sadness and shove her back into mother-mode. She removes herself from Andy’s arms and sits on Michael’s other side, wrapping her arms around him instead and kissing the side of his face.  
   
“I told Karen I’d give you a big hug, since she can’t be here to do it herself.”  
   
“Thanks,” Michael mutters listlessly. He needs the doctor to be finished, now. He needs to hold Luke’s hand again.  
   
“Mr. Hemmings’ family?” a male voice asks.  
   
Everyone but Michael turns to see. He knows who it is; he’s heard that voice enough. It’s going to be permanently tattooed on his brain.  _Most likely_ , that voice said, when Calum asked if Luke would wake up.  _We just can’t be sure._  
   
“I’m Dr. Patel, I’m your son’s primary physician. If you’d like I can take a few minutes to explain to you what’s happening, and then you can see him.”  
   
Michael’s already heard this speech, so he gets up and walks away. No one follows him. He goes into Luke’s room, and everything is the same. A nurse is just finishing changing the dressing on Luke’s head. There are old, yellowed bandages in the garbage can that Michael accidentally catches a glimpse of, and his stomach churns so he looks away.  
   
“He’s doing okay,” the girl says. She’s younger, with a round figure and dark hair and a pretty smile. She removes the latex gloves from her hands and tosses those in the trash as well, and rubs Michael’s arm on her way past him. “He’s a fighter, this one. He is going to wake up, Michael. Then you’ll be back to rocking out with your socks out.”  
   
Michael blinks and frowns, and looks at her.  
   
She shrugs sheepishly. “ _Wrapped Around Your Finger_  is my favorite.”  
   
“Oh.” Michael exhales and actually manages to smile. It feels like it’s been years since he’s done that. “Mine too.”  
   
“I know.” She looks back at Luke. “I couldn’t believe it, when they first sent me in here and I saw it was him. It was like walking into a room and seeing your mother. I hadn’t heard about the accident, I was working. And then he was just here, and you three were at the end of the hall waiting for him. When they found out I knew who he was, they didn’t want to let me work on him. But I had to. I … I wanted to help.”  
   
Michael nods. “Thank you,” he whispers.  
   
“His heartbeat is really strong. And his brain activity is, too. It’s all over the charts, like he’s dreaming, but usually coma patients don’t dream. It’s like, somewhere in there, he’s fighting to get back to you.”  
   
She pats his arm again, and then she goes, and Michael supposes she meant  _you_  to be the whole band, but it feels personal. It feels like Luke is fighting to get back to  _him_. For the first time in two days, tears burn behind Michael’s eyes. He should have asked her name. He didn’t even think of it.  
   
He sits on the edge of the bed, like he’s done before, and picks up Luke’s hand. The heartrate monitor attached to his finger makes a machine next to the bed beep, slow and steady, mapping the rhythms of Luke’s heart. He’s alive, in there. And he’s fighting to stay that way. Tears drip down Michael’s cheeks as he brings Luke’s hand up to his mouth and kisses the backs of his knuckles.  
   
“Keep fighting, okay?” he whispers. “You gotta come back to me. I … I need you.”  
   
Arms wrap around his shoulders from behind. Michael didn’t hear Ashton come in, but he leans back into Ashton’s embrace gratefully and squeezes his eyes shut.  
   
“He loves you so much,” Ashton murmurs, into the top of Michael’s head.  
   
“I know,” Michael breathes. He wants to wipe the tears off his face but that would mean letting go of Luke’s hand, and he can’t do that. “I just need him to wake up.”  
   
“He will,” Ashton promises.

* * *

 

It’s Thursday. Luke’s family has adopted their pattern of taking turns at the hotel, so at least a few people are always here. He suspects the nursing staff is getting sick of them hanging around, especially now since there’s seven instead of three – and often more than that, with Zoe and Dave and others popping in all the time – but they all refuse to leave for longer than a few hours at a time. Sending them annoyed looks seems to be the most the nurses and orderlies are allowed to do about it. Liz and Andy aren’t here, right now. Liz hadn’t wanted to leave, but Zoe showed up and insisted, in that way of hers where she forces someone to do something but still makes it feel like it was their idea. Calum hopes they stay away for a long time. Liz has looked so run down these last few days, that he’s almost as worried about her as he is Michael.

There’s nothing anyone can do to make Michael leave for longer than an hour at most, even Zoe. Calum suspects he doesn’t even sleep when he goes to the hotel at everyone else’s insistence. Michael always comes back looking worse than when he left. Calum thinks Michael probably just sits on a fully made bed in the hotel room they’re sharing, watching the second hand of a clock until it hits sixty minutes, and then coming back. It’s his way of getting everyone off his back, without ever having to be gone for too long. He can’t keep going like this. None of them can. Luke needs to wake up.  
   
Calum is sitting in their usual haunt at the end of the hall with Ashton and Luke’s brothers. They’re talking, sort of, but not really saying much. Ben tells them about work. Ashton mentions a song of their new album he’s really excited about. Calum had forgotten they recorded another album a month ago. He’d forgotten they’re planning on releasing it in October. He’d forgotten they’re in the middle of a world tour, that they’re supposed to be playing shows all over the UK right now instead of sitting in a hospital. It feels so distant, like something out of someone else’s life. Like a story someone told him.  
   
Suddenly, there’s yelling. They all look up. Calum’s heart leaps into his throat. He doesn’t know where it came from, but he panics anyway. Then it happens again.  
   
“ _Help!_ ” someone yells, and then Calum realizes it isn’t someone, it’s Michael. He knows his best friend’s voice, even when it’s shouting and scared like Michael almost never is.  
   
Ashton is already gone, with Ben and Jack right behind him. Calum is glued to his chair for just a moment before he gets up and sprints after them. Ashton ducks into Luke’s room for just a second, and then leans back out and bellows, “Somebody help!” down the hall before he disappears again.  
   
Calum pushes the door open, and two nurses run in just after him, snapping at everyone to move and shoving their way toward the bed through the throng of bodies. It’s too small a room for this many people. Calum takes in the scene with a heart beating so fast he feels sick – Michael and Ashton standing next to the bed, the nurses trying to get past them, and Luke – thrashing around under the white sheet, his blue eyes wide open and terrified. Calum hears himself gasp.  
   
“Luke, it’s okay,” Ashton is saying. Michael is motionless, his hands covering his mouth, tears in his tired eyes.  
   
“What the fuck?” Luke asks. His voice is scratchy and weak, unused for five days. He grabs at the tubes in his nose. “What is this?”  
   
“ _Move_ ,” one nurse finally yells, roughly shoving Michael out of the way when he won’t. She grabs one of Luke’s arms and the other nurse does the same on the opposite side, pinning him to the bed as he continues to lash against their restraint.  
   
“Mr. Hemmings, you’re in a hospital. You’ve been in an accident, but you’re alright. Can you hear me?”  
   
“What accident?” Luke cries hysterically. “Get off me!”  
   
“Listen to me, Mr. Hemmings, you’re in a hospital. Everything is okay, I need you to calm down.”  
   
“Who’s Mr. Hemmings? What are you doing, let me go!”  
   
“Oh my God,” Ashton squeaks.  
   
Jack swears, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and leaves the room. Just as the door swings closed behind him, it opens again, and Dr. Patel hurries in, flanked by two male orderlies.  
   
“Grab his legs, restrain him,” Dr. Patel barks.  
   
“Don’t hurt him!” Ashton cries.  
   
“He’s going to hurt  _himself_ ,” the doctor snaps, as the orderlies close their hands over Luke’s knees and help hold him down.  
   
“No, no, no,” Luke is mumbling, still fighting but unable to move much now other than his head, tossing back and forth on the pillow.  
   
Calum feels like he’s going to be sick. Michael looks worse, though. Michael looks horrified, so Calum goes to him, putting his arm over Michael’s trembling shoulders. He can’t help Luke, so he settles for Michael.  
   
“Cal,” Michael whispers frantically, grabbing at his shirt.  
   
“Luke, it’s us,” Ben says desperately.  
   
Luke just keeps muttering  _no_ , over and over again, his eyes screwed tightly closed now.  
   
“Luke,” Dr. Patel says sharply. “Open your eyes. I need you to look at me. My name is Ravi Patel, I’m a doctor. You’re in a hospital. You’re safe. I need you to calm down or you’re going to hurt yourself.”  
   
“Get off me,” Luke mutters again, feebly this time.  
   
“Luke, they can’t let go of you until you’ve calmed down. Okay? Take a few deep breaths for me and they’ll let go, I promise.”  
   
Luke presses his lips together, but he does what the doctor asked. He stops moving and he breathes, his chest rising and falling slowly.  
   
“Good,” Dr. Patel encourages. “That’s good, Luke. As long as you stay calm, we’ll let go of you now, alright?”  
   
Luke nods, and the nurses and orderlies back off. They stay close, though, in case they need to hold him down again.  
   
“Fuck,” Michael whispers. Calum catches Ashton’s gaze from across the room, and finds his expression as scared as Calum’s sure his own is.  
   
“Luke, you were in an accident. You fell and hit your head.That’s why you’re here. Do you remember the accident?” Dr. Patel asks.  
   
Luke shakes his head slowly, his eyes still closed, and then his mouth says, “I’m not Luke. Stop calling me Luke, that’s not my name.”  
   
Calum’s heart stops.  
   
“W –  _what_?” Michael gasps, next to him.  
   
Dr. Patel looks up, exchanging a worried look with one of the nurses. “What is your name, then?” he asks slowly.  
   
“It’s Luke!” Michael yells suddenly, way too loud for the seriousness of the moment. “His name is Luke!”  
   
“Out,” Dr. Patel says shortly, pointing at the door without looking up. The orders jump into action.  
   
“No, stop!” Michael cries, fighting back against them. “Just tell us what’s happening! Why doesn’t he know his name?”  
   
“You have to go,” the taller orderly insists, pushing the four of them from the room.  
   
“What is your name?” Dr. Patel is repeating, leaning over Luke again.  
   
Just before the door slams in their faces, Calum hears Luke’s soft, scared voice admit, “I don’t know.”  
   
*           *           *


	7. Chapter 7

“What do you remember?”  
   
It’s clouds. All just clouds, grey and swirling. Like dirty water circling a drain. And pain, also. His head hurts. He says so. “My head hurts.”  
   
“I’m sure it does. Do you remember falling?”  
   
“Falling where?”  
   
“I can’t tell you, Luke. I need you to think, I need you to tell me if you remember.”  
   
Now it’s flashes, like an action sequence in a cartoon. Colors, bombarding him. Too many of them, moving too quickly. He can’t focus on any of it. New smells. Sterile, like alcohol. Someone’s cologne. The lights are way too blinding, his eyes won’t stay open. He wants to scream, to jump out of this bed and run away, but he can’t or they’ll pin him down again. They said so.  
   
“Remember?” he asks.  
   
“You’re in a hospital right now because you were in an accident and you hit your head. Do you remember that?”  
   
He shakes his head. Someone is telling stories. He would remember falling. Maybe he’s been kidnapped. Maybe it’s all an elaborate plot, some kind of psychological torture before they kill him.  
   
“Do you remember anything?”  
   
“Why are you doing this?” he pleads. “I won’t go to the police.”  
   
For a moment, there’s silence. Then the voice speaks again. It’s a man’s voice, the one who says he’s a doctor, and he sounds … worried. “You’re in a hospital,” he repeats.  
   
“I know, you keep telling me that.”  
   
“Why don’t you believe me?”  
   
“Why would I be in a hospital?”  
   
“Because … because your head hurts.”  
   
_Oh_ , he thinks. That’s true, it does. “Oh,” he says, out loud this time.  
   
“We’re going to make your head feel better, okay?”  
   
Maybe. Maybe it’s okay. He doesn’t know. “Why don’t I know my name?”  
   
It’s something he should know. Names are important. Aren’t they? If he doesn’t have a name, does he really exist at all? Maybe he doesn’t, maybe this is a dream. That makes more sense. He’ll wake up in five minutes and remember that his name is Sam Rodgers and he’s an insurance salesman from Chicago. He tries to move his leg. That usually makes him wake up, when he’s stuck in a dream.  
   
“You’ve got some memory loss, it seems, from the accident.”  
   
“I was in an accident?”  
   
“You hit your head. That’s why you don’t remember.”  
   
He should probably believe them. He should stop fighting. Maybe if he gives in to the dream, it will end sooner. “What’s my name, again?”  
   
“Luke Hemmings.”  
   
He shakes his head. That doesn’t sound right.  
   
“Alright, what would you like us to call you, then?”  
   
He doesn’t know. Sam Rodgers doesn’t feel like his name either. “That one, I guess.”  
   
“Okay. Can you tell me what you remember? Anything? Do you know who you are? Where you are?”  
   
“Hospital.”  
   
“Do you know  _where_? What city?”  
   
He shakes his head. He could be so many places.  
   
“Do you know your mother’s name? Where you grew up? Whether you have any pets?”  
   
He thinks – or he  _tries_  to think, his head is pounding – and then shakes again for  _no_. He doesn’t know any of that. Does he even have a mother? He must, everyone has a mother. Why doesn’t he know her name?  
   
There’s soft whispering; people talking to each other in hushed tones. They don’t want him to hear. Then the doctor says, “I think what you’re experiencing is a bit of retrograde amnesia, from the fall. It’s not uncommon when people have hit their heads as hard as you did. This likely won’t be permanent, but I’m going to run a bunch of tests so we can figure out exactly what we’re dealing with. Is that alright?”  
   
He nods this time. He doesn’t seem to have much of a choice. Those men holding his legs were strong. If he resists, they’ll hold him down and make him do whatever this doctor wants. Maybe if he just complies, it won’t hurt as much.

* * *

 

The door doesn’t reopen for maybe fifteen minutes, but it feels like hours. Ashton can’t breathe properly. He stands against the wall with his eyes closed and tries to focus on not panicking. It doesn’t really work. Michael is on the floor, his knees pulled up against his chest and his arms wrapped around them, shaking. Ashton should be helping him. He should be sitting next to him and hugging him and promising him it will all be okay. He can’t do it. Not this time. He can’t even look at Ben or Calum. He doesn’t want to know how they’re reacting. He just keeps his eyes closed and tries to breathe, tries to steady his racing heart.  
   
“Is he – ?” Jack’s voice asks, walking up to them with quick, heavy footfalls.  
   
“He doesn’t know his own fucking name,” Ben answers. They both sound so anxious. “Did you call Mum and Dad?”  
   
“They’re coming. I just told them he was awake, though, not …”  
   
“Do you think he remembers  _anything_?” Calum breathes.  
   
 “We don’t know,” Ashton says. He keeps his eyes closed, and speaks to himself as much as to everyone else. “Don’t freak out. We don’t know yet.”  
   
“How the hell are we supposed to  _not_  freak out?” Jack demands.  
   
“We don’t know yet,” Ashton repeats. Breathe in, breathe out.  
   
“What if it doesn’t come back?” Ben’s voice cracks. So much for not panicking. “What if …?”  
   
“Stop,” Michael says, quiet but serious. “Just fucking stop it.”  
   
“Michael, they’re just – ”  
   
“I don’t  _care_ , Cal, just … everybody shut the fuck up. Just shut up.”  
   
It’s the best suggestion Ashton’s heard all day, and he’s grateful when everyone listens. Finally,  _finally_ , the door creaks, and Ashton’s eyes snap open. Dr. Patel and one of the nurses come out, shutting the door behind them and leaving Luke alone with the younger nurse in the room. Nobody moves, all five of them waiting with held breath for news. The doctor looks around, through the group, and his eyes settle on Ben.  
   
“Your parents?”  
   
“On their way.”  
   
“What’s going on?” Calum pleads.  
   
“I can’t say for sure until – ”  
   
Michael makes an involuntary noise in his throat, like he’s holding in a sob, and Ashton begs on behalf of his friend. “Just give us something, please.”  
   
Dr. Patel’s dark eyes lock with Ashton’s, and he nods again, gravely. “He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t remember the accident. I don’t think he remembers anything.”  
   
“Anything, like …  _anything_?” Jack cries.  
   
“It doesn’t seem so. I’ll know more soon. This isn’t uncommon with head injuries. We’ll do some brain scans, and have a psychologist meet with him. Sometimes it’s a matter of just triggering the memories with the right words, sometimes they come back in a day or two.”  
   
“And if they don’t?” Ben worries.  
   
“I can’t answer that right now. I’m sorry.”  
   
“Can we see him?” Michael’s voice asks, from below, where he’s still sitting on the floor.  
   
The doctor shakes his head. “Not now.”  
   
“He doesn’t know who we are,” Ashton reminds, weakly. “It wouldn’t help.”  
   
“I need to go order some tests. Have someone at the nurse’s station page me when your parents arrive,” Dr. Patel tells Ben. “I know this seems bad, but try your best to keep calm. Temporary amnesia after an injury like his is not out of the ordinary. Very often, a person’s memories will come back sooner or later.”  
   
No one moves once he’s gone. Ashton can’t. His feet are glued to the floor, paralyzed in fear. It’s as if someone just told him the sky is yellow instead of blue. It doesn’t matter how many times they say it, it won’t reconcile in his head with his perception of reality. None of this is supposed to be happening. Luke was never supposed to get hurt. Not like this. He could break his foot or something. That would be alright. He’d wear a boot cast for a while, and they’d all tease him for being clumsy, and then his bones would heal and everything would be fine. This could be permanent. Ashton doesn’t know how to deal with it. Maybe Michael’s had the right idea all along. Maybe shutting down and feeling nothing is better.  
   
Luke’s parents come rushing down the hall a minute later. Ashton doesn’t look up. He’s staring straight ahead at the blank wall opposite him, and it’s oddly calming. Ben and Jack fill their parents in on what’s gone on, and Liz promptly starts crying again and then they all leave. Ashton doesn’t know or care where they go.  
   
“Ash,” Calum says, softly.  
   
Ashton blinks. Calum is right in front of him, suddenly. His eyes are wide – worried – and his forehead is twisted into a frown. He looks so scared. He’s Ashton’s best friend in the entire world. They’re all best friends, the four of them, but Ashton’s always had something just slightly more with Cal. His partner in crime, the one he goes on adventures with when Luke and Michael are lame and don’t want to come, the one he can tell all his secrets to. Ashton’s told Calum things he never thought he would tell anyone. They’ve been through so much and he’s never, ever seen Calum look the way he does right now. Michael’s still on the floor. They need him, they both do, and Ashton can’t remember how to breathe.  
   
“Let’s go sit down, okay?” Calum touches his arm, tentative; like he’s worried Ashton might explode.  
   
“Luke doesn’t remember us,” Michael whispers, and it kick-starts Ashton’s mind back into gear. He can do this. He can be what they need. He always has been.  
   
He gives Calum a small, reassuring smile, and then bends down and hooks his hand under Michael’s arm. “C’mon, Michael. Cal’s right, we can’t just stand here. We’re in the way. Let’s go sit.”  
   
Michael lets himself be pulled upright, and the three of them walk back down the hall to the square of chairs that’s become their unofficial home this week. Once they’re out of here, Ashton hopes he never has to spend one minute in a hospital ever again.  
   
Calum starts humming softly, and because Ashton is upset, scattered, it take him a moment to recognize the tune. It isn’t just the kind of idle humming Calum does when he cooks, random and devoid of melody. It’s a very  _specific_  melody. It’s their song, it’s Amnesia.  
   
“What are you doing?” Michael asks in a whisper. He recognized it too.  
   
Calum glances at him and shrugs one shoulder. “I … nothing. Sorry.”  
   
“Were you just humming fucking  _Amnesia_?”  
   
“No. Maybe. Yes.”  
   
Ashton glances back and forth between them, his heartbeat speeding up again.  
   
“Is that supposed to be  _funny_?” Michael breathes.  
   
“No.” Calum sighs and fidgets. “I don’t know. It’s just … ironic.”  
   
“What is?” Michael asks, dangerously. He’s furious, he’s just trying to maintain a hold over it.  
   
“That it was him, who sang that line.  _I wish that I could wake up with Amnesia_. And now …”  
   
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”  
   
“Mike, leave it,” Ashton mutters, pleading. They don’t need to fight right now. “He didn’t mean anything. We’re all stressed out.”  
   
“That is a stupid love song about wishing you could forget about an imaginary girl because you miss her,” Michael hisses. He’s been friends with Calum the longest of any pair of them, for nearly a decade, and right now he looks like he wants to punch Calum’s teeth in. “Luke has fucking  _brain damage_ , do you seriously think this is a joke?!”  
   
“No, of course not!” Calum cries. “I was trying to, I don’t know, break the tension a little! We’re all sitting here freaking out, I thought you guys would laugh and then this would suck a little less!”  
   
“How could it  _possibly_  suck less?” Michael demands. “He is our fucking best friend and he doesn’t even know who we are!”  
   
“Yeah, I know that! That’s not what I’m saying!”  
   
“Michael, stop,” Ashton says again, tugging at Michael’s sleeve. “You know he didn’t mean it like that.”  
   
“Get  _off_ , Ashton!”  
   
“Excuse me!” a voice says loudly, suddenly right next to them. Ashton looks up into the narrowed, angry brown eyes of a nurse, orange-haired and tiny, no taller than five feet even, still managing to be intimidating even though the three of them would tower over her if they stood up.  
   
“What?” Michael snaps, unkindly.  
   
Ashton smacks him,  _hard_ , on the shoulder.  
   
“This is a  _hospital_ ,” she says, hotly. “I don’t care how famous you are. The three of you can sit here  _quietly_  or you can wait outside.”  
   
Michael looks so mad, like it’s on the tip of his tongue to stand up and dare her to have them thrown out, but Ashton grabs him again, roughly by the collar of his hoodie.  
   
“Michael, don’t even  _fucking_  think about it,” he threatens.  
   
Michael glares at the nurse anyway, just to be a jerk about it, and she points a finger menacingly at just him and warns, “I’ve got my eye on you.”  
   
As she walks away and disappears into a patient’s room, Michael shoves Ashton’s hands off again and mutters, “Fuck both of you.”  
   
“Michael, I didn’t …” Calum begins. Michael looks at him, into Calum’s sad, dark eyes, but he doesn’t finish the sentence, so Michael drops the whole thing.  
   
They fall into stiff, uncomfortable silence. In a way, it’s almost worse than fighting.

* * *

 

Michael wakes up to the sound of someone knocking at his door. He’s pulled groggily to the surface of consciousness; it feels like he’s been asleep for about a week, but when he checks his phone it’s only been a few hours. Zoe turned up, and forced the three of them to come back to the hotel for a while. There wouldn’t be news for at least a couple of hours, she argued, and they weren’t allowed to see Luke in the meantime anyway. Visitors would stress him out, the doctor said, since he doesn’t know them. He  _doesn’t know them_. Michael kept playing the words in his head as he was trying to fall asleep, and it led to a broken sleep filled with horrible dreams where Luke never remembers. Where he builds a new life for himself from scratch, and Michael isn’t in it.  
   
He’s so far out of his element this time. Through the looking glass or over the waterfall or whatever the expression is. They’ve been through things before, but nothing like this. Nothing even close. Michael loves Luke so  _fucking_ much, and now Luke doesn’t even know who  _he_  is, let alone Michael. It’s too much. The worst day of Michael’s life so far times about a million still wouldn’t be half as bad as this week has been. Michael is so drained, so beyond the point of handling any of this. If Luke never remembers … if Michael never gets to hold him again, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He can’t imagine a life that’s worth living if Luke isn’t in it.  
   
Michael feels sick when he thinks about how scared Luke must be right now. In a hospital room, full of strangers, with no idea who he is or who anyone else is, no memories of his entire  _life_. He’s all alone, and Michael wants to be back there right now, in Luke’s room, holding his hand and promising him he’s safe, that everything will be okay. And he can’t even do that. It wouldn’t help, even if he were allowed. Luke doesn’t know him. He wouldn’t bring comfort. He’s just another stranger now. Their whole history, years of friendship and banding, and having each other when they had no one else, and getting out of Sydney together just like they always wanted, and falling in love along the way; all of it gone, like someone wiped the blackboard clean.  
   
He gets up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and stumbling ungracefully in the direction of the door, checking the peep-hole before opening it. It’s Calum.  
   
“Hey,” he says, when Michael opens the door. His hands are folded together and he’s wringing them, fingers tugging on each other nervously. He looks like he’s worried Michael is going to start throwing punches, and Michael feels badly about that.  
   
“Come in,” he says, with a sigh. He isn’t upset with Calum anymore. He’s just tired, and worried. And overwhelmed, and devastated, and a hundred other things he doesn’t have the energy left to name. It’s that line from  _Anchorman_ , about being in a glass case of emotion, except it isn’t funny anymore. It’s real.  
   
Calum steps into the room. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “That was really stupid, at the hospital earlier.”  
   
Michael shakes his head. It wasn’t Calum’s fault, and he was so mean. “I was a dick. You didn’t … I’m just …”  
   
“I know.” Calum nods. “Me too.”  
   
Michael sits on the edge of his bed, tugging uncomfortably at the hem of his boxers. They ride up his thigh; because they aren’t his, he realizes. They’re Luke’s. Luke is skinnier than Michael is. Michael’s throat closes for a moment. Calum sits next to him and sniffs – his eyes are swimming with tears when Michael looks at him, and that just makes everything hurt more.  
   
“ _I’m_  sorry,” Michael mumbles. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”  
   
“You love him, and he’s hurt. You think we don’t get that? We love him too, Michael.” Calum wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Maybe not like you do, but we do.”  
   
Michael feels even worse. Like he’s hit rock bottom, and then dug down another six feet. “I know you do. Fuck, I never meant …”  
   
He doesn’t know how to finish the thought, so he doesn’t. Tears burn behind his eyes, too. Everything is broken, and he’s so god-damn tired of being sad. This story needs it’s happy ending, and it needs to come right now. Michael can’t keep going like this.  
   
Someone else knocks at the door, and Michael gets up again, this time to let Ashton in. Ashton smiles sadly at him and rubs his arm briefly, before noticing Calum on the bed and going to him instead. He puts an arm around Calum’s shoulders, and Cal leans into him.  
   
“Are you guys okay?” Ashton asks softly, looking back at Michael.  
   
“Not really,” Michael says honestly, and Ashton seems to understand he means with the situation at large, not with each other. He lifts his other arm, gesturing for Michael to join them, so Michael does. He sits and leans against Ashton’s other side, Ashton’s big arms hugging around them both.  
   
“He’s gonna be alright,” Ashton soothes. It’s wishful thinking and it doesn’t make anything better. 

*           *           *


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [if anxiety triggers you come talk to me before reading this one]

They all meet, in the morning, in Dr. Patel’s office on the top floor of the hospital. It’s a good-sized room, the walls lined with stuffed bookshelves and decorated with framed degrees. The carpet is green. There’s a nice view out the window, of trees and the tops of buildings. It’s sunny today, for the first time since Luke fell. Calum tries not to hope that means things are about to get better. He has no other evidence to suggest it. Dr. Patel sits behind a big wooden desk, with a leather chair, and the rest of them cram around it, in chairs they carried in from the hallway. There are so many of them that it’s cramped even though the room itself isn’t small.  
   
Luke’s family was allowed to see him yesterday, briefly, in the evening. Calum and Michael and Ashton haven’t been given permission yet. Michael is trying so hard to keep himself together and he’s so close to shattering. The three of them stayed at the hotel last night, in the same room. They tried their best to keep Michael’s mind off everything. They watched crappy TV and talked about the new songs they wrote in L.A. and reminisced about the time a group of fans sent male strippers to their house. It’s been years and they all still laugh about that. Calum doesn’t think it will ever stop being funny. It worked, for a while. Michael was even laughing. Then it all sort of deflated, for no reason other than they ran out of things to talk about, and Michael went quiet and sad again. It tore Calum up. He can’t help anyone. His best friends are all drowning, and he’s drowning too but he wants so badly to save  _them_  before he saves himself. And he can’t. There’s nothing he could do or say to make anything better.  
   
They all slept in the same bed. They haven’t done that since the very first night they were in London, when they left Australia together to chase their dreams. Only Luke was with them, then. His absence was so loud in the room. Calum missed his squeaky laugh, his terrible sense of humor. They piled onto the queen-sized mattress anyway, the three of them, without Luke. Michael slept in the middle. Five minutes after Ashton declared it was bedtime and turned the lights out and the television off, Michael started sniffling between them.  
   
“It’s okay, Mikey,” Ashton had whispered, shifting in closer to him and rubbing his back.  
   
Calum was on his side facing away so he rolled over and got his arms around Michael. Ashton did too.  
   
“M’sorry,” Michael muttered, his voice thick and his tears damp against Calum’s shoulder.  
   
“Don’t be. We got you,” Calum promised him. They fell asleep tangled up together, clinging to each other. Luke should have been with them. It hurt so much that he wasn’t.  
   
Now they’re here, in an office with a doctor explaining what’s happening in Luke’s brain, outlining treatment plans, and all Calum wants is to run back downstairs and burst into Luke’s room and see his friend looking back at him with recognition in his blue eyes, and he can’t. If Luke looked Calum right in the face, in would be like looking at a complete stranger. In that way, maybe on second thought Calum is glad he hasn’t been allowed to see Luke yet. He thinks it would hurt too much.  
   
Ben finally has the courage to ask the question on everyone’s mind. “How long is this going to last?”  
   
The doctor presses his lips together, folding his hands in front of him on the desk and regarding them with an expression that says he regrets what he’s about to say. “Unfortunately we just don’t know. I know that isn’t what you’d like to hear. Brains are tricky. Everything may come back to him in a few days, just as if this never happened, or it could take months. If it happens at all.”  
   
“If it happens at all?” Liz repeats. She’s white as a sheet, and hasn’t really stopped crying since she arrived in England.  
   
Because he’s scared and angry and has been dealing with this for almost a week now, Calum bitterly thinks Luke’s family doesn’t have as much to be upset about. They got to see him, they got to tell him their names and see for themselves that he’s alive and that he’s being well taken care of by the hospital staff. And they didn’t have to see him fall. Calum is going to be haunted for the rest of his life by the image of Luke’s body, rumpled and bleeding, in the arms of that security guard. He’s never going to get Ashton’s face out of his mind. He looked so terrified. When it’s quiet, Calum can still hear the crowd screaming. He can still hear Michael last night; soft, muffled sobs, drenched in pure heartache, nestled in the arms of his best friends.  
   
“Cases like this are usually temporary. In all likelihood, he will remember, in time. We just can’t say for sure.”  
   
“So what … what do we do?” Jack asks. “Can we help him somehow?”  
   
Calum is glad Luke’s family is taking over this conversation. It’s all still fresh to them, they have the energy to make inquiries and suss out all the necessary information because they haven’t been here as long. They haven’t been stuck in this for as many days. Calum, Ashton, and Michael are all exhausted, run down, at the end of their ropes. Calum looks at his bandmates, and the looks on their faces probably matches his own. They’re just so tired.  
   
“Talk to him,” the doctor says. “Tell him things, about his life. But slowly. Don’t overwhelm him with too much all at once. His mind is in a very fragile state right now, he needs time to process things. You want to reintroduce him to his life, but gently. When he does remember, it might not happen in a bolt of lightning, either. Certain things might come back before others.”  
   
Liz sniffles, and Andy puts an arm around her and pulls her into a sideways hug.  
   
Ashton mutters, “Fuck,” and Calum thinks that just about sums it up. He can’t do this anymore, but they have no choice.  
   
The noise catches Dr. Patel’s attention, and he turns a little in his chair to speak directly to the three of them. “That brings us to you. Your situation is a little … unusual.”  
   
Ashton frowns. “Why?”  
   
“My daughter is a fan,” the doctor says, with a wry smile. “I know who you are. Who Luke is. His life is not what you’d generally classify as normal, is it?”  
   
“I guess not.”  
   
“So, talk to him, same as them. Tell him about your band and your life, but be extra careful not to overwhelm him. Don’t get discouraged if he doesn’t believe you straight-away. He might not, it’s too fantastic a story to be entirely believable to someone who has no memory of it.”  
   
Calum nods, and glances at his bandmates. Ashton is nodding too, his expression thoughtful as if this is something he hadn’t considered. Michael is just staring down at his own knees, his lips pressed together.  
   
“How long will he need to stay here?” Jack asks. “In the hospital, I mean.”  
   
“Maybe another week,” Dr. Patel answers. “His physical injuries are healing nicely. The broken wrist doesn’t worry me at all. He’ll need to be very careful, once we discharge him, not to engage in strenuous activity so his head can heal. But I see no reason for him to stay here much longer. I recommend taking him back home. Being in a familiar place might coax his memories back more quickly.”  
   
_Home_. It feels so far away, but Calum supposes that’s the best place for Luke to go; for all of them to go. The reality of the situation is sinking in, today. Everything is different now. If Luke doesn’t know who he is, they’ll have to cancel the rest of the tour. They can’t perform without him. They can’t be a  _band_  without him. Calum feels selfish for even thinking it, but it isn’t only Luke who’s affected by this. Their entire world just got ripped out from under them. Calum doesn’t know what they’re going to  _do_  at home. His life for the last four years has been the band. The idea of sitting around in the house he grew up in, waiting for Luke’s memories to maybe come back, is so suffocating suddenly Calum feels like he can’t breathe. His chest constricts, and his heart races, and it feels like the walls are closing in and he can’t stop them.  
   
He gets up and walks out of the room. Someone calls after him, but Calum can’t be there anymore. He needs to run away, from all of it. He’s panicking. It’s too much and he still can’t inhale properly. It’s like something is squeezing around his lungs, it’s like he’s being held under water by hands too strong to fight against. Everything around him blurs, fuzzy and sharp at the same time.  
   
“Cal.”  
   
He doesn’t even know where he’s going, he’s just walking blindly down a hallway, but footsteps come up behind him and fingers grab his sleeve.  
   
“I can’t,” Calum pants, turning to face Michael. He struggles to catch a proper breath and it doesn’t work. “C-can’t breathe.”  
   
“What?”  
   
Calum wheezes, and presses his hands into his own chest. His lungs won’t work, why won’t his lungs work?  
   
Michael’s hands come up, holding Calum’s cheeks. “It’s okay,” he says, quick and scared. “You’re okay, just … focus on me.”  
   
Calum  _tries_ , but everything is spinning too quickly.  
   
“What’s wrong?” Ashton asks, jogging over to meet them.  
   
“Fuck, I think he’s having a panic attack,” Michael mutters. His thumbs stroke Calum’s cheeks, trying to calm him. He stares right into Calum’s eyes and talks gently, quietly. “Cal. Everything’s fine, you just gotta breathe. Deep breaths, okay? In and out, slowly.”  
   
“What if – he never remembers?” Calum forces out. His heart’s going so fast. He’s dying; this is what dying feels like.  
   
“Don’t think about that, now,” Ashton tells him. He rubs Calum’s back, his hand moving up and down, along his spine, soothing. “Focus on breathing. We’re right here. You’re okay.”  
   
Calum nods and tries again, and it works a little better this time. He locks his gaze to Michael’s, trying to inhale when Michael does, exhale slowly, and it’s another minute but then the pressure in his chest starts to lessen and it gets easier. His heartrate slows back down, the terror that gripped him a moment ago evaporates a little.  
   
“Good, that’s good,” Michael encourages. “Just keep breathing.”  
   
“Fuck.” Calum breathes out, and it shakes, and he covers his face with his hands. He’s so stupid. He should be strong enough to handle this. “I’m sorry.”  
   
“Shut up,” Michael says bluntly, and hugs him. Ashton wraps around him from the other side. They’ve never touched as much as they have in the last few days, but Calum can’t help it, and it seems like the others can’t either. They just need contact, to reassure each other without words.  
   
Even still – “Sorry,” Calum mumbles again, against Michael’s shoulder this time. His face burns in embarrassment.  
   
Ashton rests his forehead on the back of Calum’s neck. “Stop. Nothin’ to be sorry for.”  
   
“Let’s get outta here, okay? Let’s just go get some coffee somewhere. I can’t be here anymore,” Calum begs. He isn’t getting used to the hospital smell. He would have thought he’d go blind to it after this long, but he hasn’t. The air in this place is stale and recycled and Calum needs to breathe something else.  
   
There’s a park, not too far from the hospital. They’re probably going to get in shit from Zoe or Dave for wandering off, but Calum doesn’t care. They get coffee in travel cups from the cafeteria and then walk the few blocks to the park and find a big tree to sit under. It helps. The sunshine and the fresh air clear the fog in Calum’s head.  
   
“One day, we’re gonna look back on this week, when Luke’s better, and you know what I’m gonna remember?” Ashton asks. “Not how shitty this all was. Not how scared we were. I’m gonna remember that I have the best fucking friends in the whole fucking world.”  
   
Calum manages to smile. It feels good.  
   
“You guys are my family,” Ash continues. He nudges Calum’s knee with his foot. “We can get through this together.”  
   
“Hell yeah,” Michael says, but his voice is shaky. He  _wants_  to believe it, but he isn’t quite there yet. Calum isn’t either.  
   
“So, we go back home, I guess. Once they let him out. And … fuck, I don’t know.” Calum folds his empty coffee cup in half in his hands. “How do you rebuild an entire life?”  
   
“We’ll figure it out. Together,” Ashton repeats. “We went from a garage and a pipe dream to being one of the biggest bands in the world. What the hell  _can’t_  we do?”  
   
“We did that with Luke, though,” Michael points out sadly.  
   
“We’re gonna do it with Luke again.” Ashton is all confidence, suddenly, and it makes Calum want so badly to believe he’s right, that they can do this. “He needs us right now. He’s our best friend. Michael, he loves you so fucking much. He doesn’t remember all that right now, so it’s our job to help him get there.”  
   
*           *           *


	9. Chapter 9

An orderly left him a mirror and when he’s alone, he just holds it up and stares at himself. He’s surprised to find he does recognize his own face, a little. He knew his eyes were blue before he saw them. His nose, his eyebrows, his lips, they all look at least vaguely familiar. He feels like he’s seen them before. He just examines his own reflection sometimes, moving the muscles of his face just to watch them move in the mirror, to know it’s really him. When he tells his lips to smile, they do. The bandage on his head is troubling. He’s been told not to poke at it, so he doesn’t. It itches, though. He wonders whether he’ll have a scar. They said he’d had stitches – a lot of them. They said his skull was cracked open. That would explain why he nearly always has a headache, despite the drugs they’ve got pumping into his veins through an IV attached to his hand. He doesn’t like them. They make him feel sluggish and tired. Although maybe that’s the head-wound.  
   
When he looks a little closer, there’s a tiny hole just under his bottom lip, on the left side. He runs the pad of a finger over it, and has no idea what that means. Maybe he was bitten by a single-fanged vampire. No one mentioned that. Although, no one has mentioned much of anything. He met four people claiming to be his family last night, a woman and man who do look old enough to be his parents and two younger guys who, admittedly, do look an awful lot like the reflection that stares back at him through the mirror. They  _could_  be his brothers. They say they are, and he isn’t really sure why they would be lying. Jack and Ben. Ben and Jack. He tries to remember which one of them was which. He thinks the shorter one was Ben. But maybe not.  
   
There’s a soft knock at the door. He puts the mirror down on the bedside table and gives the person permission to come in, and a boy about his age with bright blue hair opens the door and tentatively enters the room. He closes the door behind him but then just hovers next to it, staring at the bed.  
   
His eyes blink a few times. He knows this boy. “It’s you. You’re the … you were here, when I woke up.”  
   
“Yeah.” The boy nods, and looks sad. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, when you came to.”  
   
“I don’t think it was your fault.”  
   
The boy squints like he doesn’t know what to say, and runs a hand through his hair. “Can I call you Luke? Or is that still weird?”  
   
“I guess that’s my name. That’s what people are saying, so.” He shrugs.  _Luke_. It sounds weird still, but it’s not like there’s a different name in his head that he thinks  _does_  belong to him. And the woman, the one who says she’s his mother, showed him a license to drive with his picture on it, so it must be true. He’s Luke.  
   
The boy walks a little further into the room, slowly like he’s approaching a wild animal, and pulls a chair over to sit in. “How are you feeling?”  
   
Luke shrugs. “Okay. My head kinda hurts all the time, but. They say that won’t last forever.”  
   
The boy nods, and Luke stares at him. His eyes are so green. One of his eyebrows is pierced, with a metal bar through it, and just under the rolled up sleeve of a black t-shirt, Luke can make out the ink of tattoos over his pale skin.  
   
“Who are you?” Luke asks bluntly. He can’t think of a polite way to say it.  
   
“Oh.” The boy’s face falls, like he’d forgotten Luke doesn’t know him. So Luke  _should_  know him, then. “Sorry. Um. My name is Michael. I’m … a friend.”  
   
Luke chews at the inside of his cheek. “Alright.”  
   
“I was there when you fell. It was … I’m … happy you’re okay. I mean …” Michael sighs, and looks annoyed with himself suddenly. “You’re not okay.”  
   
“Alive,” Luke corrects for him. “I know what you meant.”  
   
“Yeah.”  
   
Luke likes Michael’s eyes. They look honest. The people who say they’re his family all looked so devastated. He felt like they were all tiptoeing around him, not wanting to say the wrong thing in case he goes nuts again. Luke didn’t know how to convince them that he won’t freak out, he just wants to know. His head is so empty right now. He knows he’s 18 years old, so he should have 18 years of memories and he doesn’t. He’s like a jar that someone turned upside down and dumped its contents on the floor. Michael looks like he might answer some questions, if Luke asked.  
   
“Where are we?”  
   
Michael cocks his head to one side like he’s confused by the question. “In a hospital.”  
   
“No, I mean like, where? Like, in the world?”  
   
“Oh! Uh, a place called Norwich. In England. Does that … do you know, like, geography?”  
   
“I know stuff. I know where England is. I know what microwaves are, and what iTunes is, and that it’s Christmas in December,” Luke tells him. “I’m not fully brain-dead. I just don’t know my own life.”  
   
“That’s something, I guess.”  
   
“Your accent is different. From the nurses and stuff.” It’s thicker, somehow, Michael’s voice. And it’s similar, he doesn’t sound like he’s from America or something, just not quite the same as the people in scrubs who keep bustling in and out of Luke’s room. He turns words over differently.  
   
“I’m not  _from_  here. Neither are you, we’re from Sydney.”  
   
“Australia.” Luke takes in that information. He hadn’t really noticed that his own voice was different too, but he does now that Michael points it out.  
   
“Didn’t anyone tell you that?”  
   
“No one’s really told me anything,” Luke says, sighing. It’s been frustrating. He just wants to know everything, and people keep insisting he needs to go slowly. “How did I fall?”  
   
Michael hesitates for just a moment, like maybe he’s also been told Luke needs to go slow, but then he looks Luke in the eyes and says, “You fell off a stage. We’re, um. We’re in a band. Like a rock band. We were playing a show.”  
   
Luke frowns, and attempts to weave that into his broken brain. It won’t quite fit, even though he has no reason to believe it isn’t true. Although it would explain Michael’s hair. “Seriously?”  
   
“Wanna see a picture?”  
   
“Are you going to get in trouble for telling me?”  
   
Michael shrugs and rolls his eyes. “Maybe. I don’t care. You should know. And you  _want_  to know, right?”  
   
Luke nods. “Yeah, I really do.”  
   
Michael grins at him. He looks almost … proud. He tugs his phone from his pocket and presses at the screen a few times, and then he stands up and walks closer so he can hand it to Luke.  
   
Luke takes it and looks; turns the device on its side so the picture fills the screen. He recognizes himself first, on a couch surrounded by people. He’s in black skinny jeans and a red plaid shirt. There’s an electric guitar in his hand, he’s holding it up vertically and licking the strings, making a ridiculous face. Then he recognizes Michael, next to him, only bleached-blond. He’s laughing. He looks so happy.  
   
“Who are they?” Luke asks, pointing to the others, squished onto the couch on either side of them. One has curly, sand-colored hair and is holding drumsticks. The other has dark hair, dark eyes, brownish skin, and he’s lying half on top of Michael, smiling so big his eyes have almost disappeared.  
   
Michael sits on the bed next to Luke’s leg, and leans over to point. “That’s Calum,” he says, pointing to the only one of them who isn’t blond and Caucasian. “He plays the bass. And Ashton.”  
   
“Drums?” Luke surmises.  
   
“Yeah.”  
   
“What are we doing?”  
   
“I’m not sure,” Michael chuckles fondly. “We were backstage at a show, I don’t even remember who took this. I really like it, though.”  
   
Luke laughs a little too. He doesn’t remember the last time he laughed. For all he knows, it’s been months. He doesn’t remember the moment in the photograph. He doesn’t remember being in a band. But there’s something about Michael that makes Luke want to believe him. “Who sings?”  
   
“We all do, kinda, but mostly you.”  
   
“Really?” Luke laughs again. He can’t imagine that. “Do I suck?”  
   
“No.” Michael’s lips curl into a soft smile. “You’re really good.”  
   
“Do I have any tattoos?” Luke asks, the thought just occurring to him after catching sight again of the black rings on Michael’s right arm. He lifts his own arms and looks them over.  
   
Michael shakes his head. “Your lip is pierced, though.”  
   
“It is? Hey, that’s why there’s a hole.” Luke reaches for the mirror again, and pulls his lip tight with his finger to see it.  
   
“I’m not sure where the ring is.” Michael glances around. “I guess they took it out while you were unconscious.”  
   
Luke grimaces. “That’s a weird thought.”  
   
“Weirder than the fact that they had to put your brain back into your head?” Michael asks, making a joke out of it, and then his face falls almost instantly. “Fuck, sorry, that isn’t funny.”  
   
“No, it …” Luke reaches out and touches his arm. His pale skin is warm. “It’s okay.”  
   
Michael nods, but still looks upset. He folds his hands in his lap and drops his gaze down to stare at his fingers. “It was pretty fucking scary.”  
   
“I’m sorry.”  
   
“Don’t do that. It wasn’t your fault.”  
   
Luke lets go of Michael’s arm, and doesn’t know what else to say. “Hey, um, are the others here? The guys in our band? Ashton and … sorry, who’s the other one?”  
   
“Calum.” Michael shakes his head. “Not right now. They needed to sleep for a while. But they’ll be back.”  
   
“When was the last time you slept?”  
   
Michael looks exhausted, now that he’s sitting close and Luke can get a better look at him. He half-expected Michael to go back to the chair once they weren’t looking at the picture anymore, but he’s still perched on the bed next to Luke’s hip and Luke doesn’t want him to move. It’s comforting, having someone here. Even if it feels like someone he just met.  
   
“You don’t need to worry about me.”  
   
“Someone should.”  
   
Michael smiles again. His eyes sparkle when he smiles.  
   
“Where’s your family?”  
   
“My parents are in Sydney. Yours were there too, until a few days ago. We don’t live here, we were on tour.”  
   
“Brothers and sisters?”  
   
Michael shakes his head. “Nope. Just you and Cal and Ash. You guys are my family.”  
   
Luke likes the way that sounds.  
   
The door opens, and a smiley, dark-haired nurse Luke recognizes pokes her head in. She told him her name yesterday, he thinks it might be Cara but he’s not positive.  
   
“Sorry to interrupt, guys. Hi Michael.”  
   
Michael turns and grins at her. “Hi again.”  
   
“Luke, I’ve gotta take you downstairs for another brain scan. Sorry, I’m sure you’re sick of these.”  
   
Luke nods. “Okay.”  
   
Michael gets up, but Luke reaches out and grabs his wrist. It’s covered in bracelets, leather and beaded. They go almost halfway up his forearm. He looks enough like a real rock-star that Luke inclined to believe his story about them, even if he doesn’t remember it. “Wait. Come with me?”  
   
Michael’s mouth opens, and then closes, before he speaks. He sounds hesitant, but not like he doesn’t want to go. Like he’s worried Luke doesn’t really want him to. “You sure?”  
   
“Yeah. No one else is here right now. Those machines are freaky, I …” Luke can’t explain it. He just wants this person with him. He didn’t feel that with anyone else. He didn’t feel it with the woman who’s supposed to be his mother. Maybe he was closer to Michael than to his own family, before the accident. He’s not sure if the thought makes him happy or sad, but he just knows he feels it. “I mean, if you don’t want to …”  
   
“No, I want to.” Michael bites his lower lip, but he smiles. “Okay. Let’s go.”  
   
Maybe-Cara unhooks a few machines and then helps Luke into the wheelchair that sits next to his bed. His face burns in embarrassment as she does it and he doesn’t look at Michael. He isn’t allowed to try walking, yet. Not for another day, the doctor said. Luke already did anyway. He got up by himself, in the middle of the night when he was alone. He has a head-wound, but he isn’t a damn invalid. He wasn’t about let a bunch of doctors and nurses parade into his room tomorrow and hover around him while he tries to walk as if his legs are broken. And he was fine. He was a little unsteady, his legs weak from the lack of use, but he did it.  
   
Luke’s heart is beating faster than he’d like to admit, as the three of them travel down the hall, off to have his head scanned again and maybe find out this time that his memory won’t ever come back. Michael is walking beside him, though, and that makes him feel a little better.  
   
“Try to stay as still as you can,” an x-ray technician tells him. Luke does, breathing deeply and closing his eyes to combat how claustrophobic it is with his head enclosed like this. The machine whirrs metallically and spins slowly around him, and Luke clenches his teeth and concentrates on not moving. There’s damage to some lobe in his brain, Luke can’t remember which one. They told him, but he wasn’t really paying attention. The science doesn’t matter, he just wants to have his life back. He wants to remember the things Michael told him about. He wants to hear someone call his name and feel like it belongs to him. He wants to look at the boy with blue hair who’s standing with the technician on the other side of the wall and feel like he isn’t a stranger. Luke doesn’t care about the reasons this happened or what the scans show or what the wound in his brain looks like. He just wants to know when this will be over.  
   
“Almost done,” the technician calls. “You doing okay?”  
   
“Yeah,” Luke answers, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Is Michael still there?”  
   
“I’m here,” Michael’s voice answers. “Not going anywhere.”  
   
“Okay.”  
   
Another minute and the machine falls silent. It stops moving, and Luke lets out the breath he’d been holding. The technician come into the room and lifts it off Luke’s head.  
   
“Results shouldn’t take more than an hour,” he tells maybe-Cara, and she nods and wheels Luke’s chair back out of the room. Michael smiles at him, and Luke smiles back. He’s thankful they gave him pants and a shirt, this morning, instead of the hospital gown he was in. They’re still thin and white and feel like they’re made of paper, but at least they cover him and he doesn’t feel so exposed.  
   
“Can I take him?” Michael asks.  
   
Maybe-Cara hesitates. “Back to his room?”  
   
“To the lounge. Just for a bit. I’m not gonna kidnap him or something, just … thought maybe he’d like a change of scenery.” Michael looks at Luke and raises his eyebrows, asking if Luke  _would_  like that, and Luke nods enthusiastically.  
   
“I don’t know …”  
   
“Please?” Michael gives her exaggerated puppy-dog eyes, and Luke suppresses a laugh. “C’mon, you know I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”  
   
She frowns, but then sighs a little and nods. “Yeah. Okay. But if somebody wigs out because he’s gone? This conversation never happened.”  
   
Michael grins. “Deal.” He keeps smiling at her as she leaves them.  
   
“Where are we going?”  
   
“There’s like a patient lounge, on the third floor. I found it the other day. The people who are stuck here but aren’t vegetables can like play cards and watch T.V. and stuff.”  
   
It’s a big room, mostly white like everything else in this place but it’s bright and sunny, big windows letting in the light. There are a few other people, most dressed in standard issue pajamas like Luke is, some with casts on various limbs and others that just look generally sick but well enough to sit at a table and read a newspaper. Michael finds a squishy, comfortable-looking sofa-chair for himself and sets them up next to a window. Luke gazes outside and realizes he hasn’t seen the sky for days. There’s a window in his room, but the shade is always drawn and Luke never thought to ask someone to open it.  
   
“How long was I in a coma for?” he asks.  
   
“Five days.” Michael tucks his feet up on the seat cushion and wraps his arms around his knees. There are tattoos on his fingers, too, Luke realizes. A black x on the middle finger of one hand, and an anchor on the thumb of the other. He wonders if there are more, that he can’t see.  
   
“Can you tell me what happened?”  
   
“When you got hurt?”  
   
Luke nods.  
   
Michael presses his lips together for a moment. “I … I’m not even sure, really. I didn’t see it. We were playing a show, at this outdoor venue. We were in the middle of our last song, and then suddenly I looked over and you weren’t on stage anymore. You fell off the front of it. And you were unconscious. And then they brought you here, and … that was kind of it, until yesterday. We just waited.”  
   
“And then I woke up and didn’t remember you,” Luke finishes. He feels like it’s his fault, and Michael looks sad and lost and he wants to make it go away.  
   
“You will.”  
   
Luke nod and chews at his bottom lip. “I can walk, you know,” he says. It’s important to him that Michael knows that. “They didn’t want me to, but I got up last night when no one was around and I walked around my room. Screw them, right? I’m not dying.”  
   
Michael smiles at him; a  _real_  smile. He looks proud again. “That’s my boy,” he chuckles.  
   
Luke smiles too. Michael’s praise makes him feel warm inside.  
   
“Mike!” someone’s voice calls.  
   
They both look up, and two guys are heading towards them. Luke identifies them from the picture.  
   
“Hi,” Michael says, as they approach. “You found us.”  
   
“Cara told us you were here.”  
   
“We’re, um. Getting acquainted.”  
   
Luke looks up into two faces, hazel eyes and brown eyes. They’re both staring at him, apprehensive and worried and unsure. He wants so badly to  _know_  them, to recognize them from more than just a photo on a phone. But he doesn’t.  
   
“Did you steal him?” the dark-haired one asks. He’s looking at Michael like a parent would look at a misbehaving child, but a reluctant smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “You’re gonna get in shit.   ·  
   
“No.” Michael rolls his eyes. “She said I could bring him here.”  
   
“Hey,” the one with the mane of curls says to Luke. It’s so awkward and he hates it. “I’m Ashton.”  
   
Luke nods. “I know. Michael showed me a picture.”  
   
“Calum,” the other one says, with an uncomfortable little wave.  
   
“Wanna sit with us?” Luke asks. He doesn’t know how this is supposed to go. If there’s protocol, if there’s a proper way to meet people, when he feels like it’s for the first time and it isn’t.  
   
“Yeah.” Ashton smiles at him, and looks around for some chairs to drag over.  
   
Once they’re settled, Luke just bites the bullet. He doesn’t know how else to get around this. “So, this is super weird.”  
   
Calum laughs a little, and the tension breaks. “So weird.”  
   
“You don’t remember  _anything_?” Ashton asks.  
   
Luke shakes his head.  
   
“That’s … it must be scary.”  
   
Luke shrugs. It is, but he doesn’t know what admitting that would accomplish, so he doesn’t. “Tell me about our band.”  
   
“You told him that?” Calum asks Michael, turning to face him. “Dude.”  
   
“They said we had to ease him back into it, not that we couldn’t tell him  _anything_ ,” Michael protests. “He wanted to know! Don’t you think he should get to choose?”  
   
“I wanted to know,” Luke repeats, confirming Michael’s story. He doesn’t want to be the reason this is more uncomfortable than it needs to be. “I’m not gonna freak out, okay? It’s my life. I wanna know about it.”  
   
Ashton still looks unsure.  
   
“It’s nice that you want to protect me or whatever, but you don’t need to. I swear I won’t freak out. I don’t …” Luke sighs. “It’s my own life, and I don’t know any of it.”  
   
“Hey.” Michael leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees so he’s closer to Luke. “You will. I promise.”  
   
Luke aches to believe him.  
   
“One time, a group of fans sent a bunch of male strippers to our house,” Calum says quietly. When Luke looks at him, he’s smiling.  
   
A small laugh bubbles up out of Luke, and then everyone else is smiling too.  
   
“That sounds horrible. And also hilarious.”  
   
“It was,” Ashton says.  
   
“Tell me about it.”  
   
*           *           *


	10. Chapter 10

“What are we going to do?” Calum asks.  
   
He’s sitting with Ashton, near the back of the airplane. Luke’s family is closer to the front, and Luke is somewhere in the middle with Michael. Calum can see the back of Luke’s blond head, a few rows up. He wanted to sit with Michael. They’ve got this connection, the two of them, even though Luke doesn’t know their history. It’s sweet, but at the same time it’s heartbreaking.  
   
They’re all suffering, but Michael’s suffering the worst. Maybe even more than Luke, who, after a week, doesn’t really resist the things they tell him anymore. He always nods and frowns and tries to remember it, and when he can’t he just believes them. Calum supposes he doesn’t have any other choice – he doesn’t have any memories, so if he doesn’t believe the things his friends and family tell him about his life, he won’t have anything. Michael, on the other hand, has  _everything_. Years of memories that he can’t spill onto Luke all at once because the doctor told them not to. Calum sees the hurt in his friend’s eyes, when Luke looks at him and doesn’t remember further than the last few days. Michael’s trying to hide it, but Calum can see it. He’s known Michael for too long.  
   
“About what?” Ashton replies. He raises his arms above his head, stretching. It’s such a long flight. Calum hates where they come from sometimes, just because it’s so damn far away from everything.  
   
“When we’re back home.” Calum can’t stop thinking about it. Hasn’t been able to, for all the time that’s past since Luke woke up.  
   
They haven’t been home for longer than a few weeks at a time since they left for London nearly four years ago, since the band took off and became their life. And when they still lived in Sydney, Calum was in school, and football, and band practice. There was always something to do. Something to keep him occupied. Calum doesn’t really know how to sit still, because he never has. Now, he feels lost. He’s excited to see his family, but even that will get old after a week or two and they have no way of knowing how long this will last. They can’t play shows. They do interviews. They can’t even practice. Luke doesn’t know their songs; he doesn’t know how to play a guitar. Calum has cabin fever already and they aren’t even home yet.  
   
“I don’t know,” Ashton says quietly. He rubs his face and shrugs. “Just … see how it goes, I guess. See if he starts remembering soon.”  
   
“What if he doesn’t?” Calum presses.  
   
Ashton sounds annoyed when he repeats, “I don’t  _know_.”  
   
Calum bites at the inside of his cheek. “Sorry,” he mumbles.  
   
“No, don’t …” Ashton sighs, and pats Calum’s thigh. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just worried.”  
   
“I just don’t know what to do,” Calum admits. “Not even about Luke, about  _us_. The rest of us. All we’ve done for four years is band stuff. Now we’re not a band anymore. At least not for a while. And it’s not, like, a regular break, where we can just hang out and party and stuff. We can’t go to a club, we can’t take off on a road trip and leave Luke. So what do we  _do_? How do we fill a day?”  
   
Ashton laughs softly. “We’re always grumbling that we don’t get enough time off, and now we finally have some and you’ve gone stir-crazy before it’s even started.”  
   
Calum laughs too, but points out, “I mean, it’s been over a week since Luke fell, so. Yeah, I’m stir-crazy. I was sick to death of the hospital and that shitty hotel room. Hospitals smell like sadness. I don’t wanna be in one ever again.”  
   
“We are all gonna get some  _rest_ , that’s what we’re gonna do,” Ashton tells him. “Sleep in our own beds for a change. See our families. Take Luke to the beach.”  
   
“Michael’s not gonna want to go to the beach.”  
   
“So Michael will stay home that day. He needs a break too, he’s been attached to Luke’s hip since he woke up. He’s barely slept in days. He’s gotta be running on fumes at this point.”  
   
“Good luck separating them.”  
   
Ashton smiles fondly and shakes his head. “They’re gross. They were gross before, and now Luke doesn’t even remember that they were in love and they’re still gross. Makes you wish a little bit you had someone who loved you that much, doesn’t it?”  
   
“I’m worried about him,” Calum says. He avoids the comment about his own love life, and Ashton’s. He can’t be bothered to think about things like that at a time like this. “Michael, I mean.”  
   
“He’s okay,” Ashton promises. “We’ll take care of him too.”  
   
“Don’t you get tired of taking care of everyone else?”  
   
Ashton shrugs. “I mean, you guys do it right back. I’m not everyone’s mum, we’re a team. We can do this.”  
   
“You sound pretty sure.”  
   
“I was fucked up before I met you guys. Depressed and lonely and shit, clinging to music because it was the only thing that made me feel like I could get out of bed. The four of us, we built this band together. We got out of Australia, we took over the world. I believe in  _us_. If we can do that, we can do this too.”  
   
Calum wishes he had Ashton’s confidence. Maybe it will be contagious. He can only hope.

* * *

 

His house looks the same as it always does. He doesn’t know why he was expecting anything else, it just feels like … everything has changed. One event, one missed step leading to one fall and one head-wound, and everything Michael knew is different now. It feels like he should have turned the corner onto his street to find his childhood home replaced by an igloo or a bouncy castle or something. It doesn’t feel right that this place looks exactly as it did when he left it, when Michael’s whole world has been turned upside down.  
   
He smiles half-heartedly at Dave, in the driver’s seat of the black SUV. Dave smiles back, mentions that someone will be in touch, and then drives away. Michael doesn’t know what the plan is for anyone else. If Dave is going to stay in Sydney with them. He doesn’t live here, like they do. He’s their bodyguard but this isn’t his home, and if they’re not really a band right now, maybe they don’t need a bodyguard. Maybe Dave will go back to England, and they won’t see him until Luke’s memories come back.  _If they come back_ , the little voice in Michael’s head reminds him cynically.  
   
Someone on their management team issued an official statement to the press a few days ago, letting the fans and media know about Luke’s condition, and asking for privacy – asking indirectly that they not be mobbed at the airport; that people be sensitive to the fact that Luke doesn’t remember his life. Michael read it so many times over he could recite if from memory, if he had to.  
   
 _Luke has suffered a traumatic brain injury from his accident at the BBC’s Big Weekend in Norwich last week_ , it said.  _He currently is experiencing complete retrograde amnesia and does not remember his life up until the fall. Luke’s family is taking him back to Sydney to recover. Calum, Ashton, and Michael are going with him. The rest of the tour will be postponed until further notice. We are asking at this time that fans be respectful of the band’s need for privacy as they all recover from this distressing event._  
   
Michael felt sick to his stomach all the way back here on the airplane, worrying that people weren’t going to listen, that there would be a throng at the airport when they landed like there usually is. By some grace of a higher power Michael doesn’t really believe in, there wasn’t. He spotted a fan or two, keeping their distance and waving at him awkwardly, but Luke didn’t see so it was okay. Ashton and Michael went over to them, while Luke’s brothers distracted him, to take a few pictures and thank them for giving Luke the space he needs. One girl tearfully asked if Luke was okay, and Ashton promised he is, even though it isn’t really the truth. Then they all went back to the Hemmings residence to get Luke settled. He had no memory of it, and Liz had been so hopeful that he would, and was crushed when he looked around and didn’t seem to recognize anything. She quickly insisted everyone go home. Luke needed to rest, she said, and she was right but Michael still hated leaving him.  
   
“You’ll come back, right?” Luke had worried, working his bottom lip between his teeth. He was addressing them all, but looking at Michael. It made Michael feel like crying, that his best friend, the person he’s in love with, doesn’t know him well enough to know he could never stay away for too long.  
   
“Of course we will,” Ashton assured. “You can’t get rid of us that easy.”  
   
“Our numbers are in your phone, if you need anything,” Calum reminded him. Zoe set Luke up with a new iPhone – his was smashed under the weight of his own body when he fell – and programed all the contacts he would need.  
   
“Right.” Luke pulled it out of his pocket and moved it between his fingers.  
   
“He won’t need anything,” Liz snapped, her voice strained and her face tired. “I’m his  _mother_ , I’ve been taking care of him for almost 19 years.”  
   
“I didn’t mean …” Calum started, and then trailed off and didn’t bother arguing. “Yeah. You’re right.”  
   
Michael swallowed and didn’t say anything. It’s unlike Liz, to be short with them. She’s stressed, like they all are.  
   
“We’ll see you real soon,” Ashton promised. He smiled at Luke, and then he and Calum left. Michael watched through the window as they climbed into the SUV and waited for him to join them.  
   
“Get some rest,” he said to Luke, finally finding his voice. He didn’t want to leave. But what  _did_ want, he couldn’t have. He can’t crawl into Luke’s bed with him and hold him until he falls asleep. He can’t kiss him until that lost look evaporates from his blue eyes.  
   
“Come back later, though, okay?” Luke asked, his eyebrows knitted anxiously together.  
   
Michael nodded. “I will.”  
   
Luke left the room, wandering off in the direction of his bedroom, and Liz followed after him.  
   
Jack winced apologetically. “She’s just …”  
   
“I know. It’s okay.” There was more he should have said, but the words wouldn’t come, so he left as well.  
   
Dave drove them home, dropping Ashton off first and then Calum, and now Michael’s standing outside his home, the place he grew up, the place he knows better than anywhere else in the world, and he can’t bring himself go inside. He’s just staring at the door, and his arm won’t lift to open it. After another minute, he doesn’t have to. It opens from the inside, and his mother comes bursting out and yanks him into a hug.  
   
“Baby,” she cries, squeezing him so tightly, and Michael crumbles a little and hugs her back. Her perfume is so familiar, dragging him right back to his childhood. Even that isn’t a pleasant memory anymore. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to see his kitchen and his parents and the rooms where he spent most of his life. Everything in this house is attached somehow to Luke. They recorded their first joint cover for YouTube in Michael’s kitchen. They announced to the world that they’d formed a band and called it  _5 Seconds Of Summer_ in the rec room. He kissed Luke for the first time in his bedroom.  He fell in love with Luke in this house.  
   
He clings to her anyway.  
   
“How are you?” she worries, pulling back and cupping his face in her hands. “How was the flight? How’s Luke?”  
   
Michael shakes his head, and tears fill his eyes. He promised himself he wasn’t going to do this, that he could be strong. And now five minutes into being back here, and he’s breaking down. “Mum,” he whimpers pitifully.  
   
“Oh, angel,” she sighs, hugging him again. She leads him inside, her arm tight around his shoulders. His suitcase sits, forgotten, on the front stoop.  
   
She sits them on the couch and he falls against her, burying his face into her shoulder and shaking, sobs wracking his body. He hasn’t done this, yet. He’s been teary once or twice but he hasn’t  _cried_. He hasn’t been letting himself. Luke needed him to hold it together. Now Luke isn’t here, and Michael misses him so much, aches for the person he lost when Luke fell, and he can’t contain it.  
   
“It’ll all be okay,” Karen soothes. She holds him tight, running her fingers through his hair. “You’ll see.”  
   
Michael just shakes his head.  
   
“He doesn’t remember anything at all?”  
   
“Not even his name,” Michael whispers. The tears burn hot as they spill down his cheeks, soaking into his mum’s blouse. “Not the band. Not me.”  
   
“But it will come back?”  
   
“They don’t know.” Michael sniffs and feels pathetic. “Maybe. Maybe not.”  
   
“I wish I could make this better.” She rocks him back and forth a little and kisses his hair. “It got you home. If there’s any silver lining. We miss you so much.”  
   
“I miss you, too,” Michael breathes. He wants to burrow into her embrace and never come back out. When he was little, he was safe here. He’d have some horrible nightmare, an imaginary creature that scared him or a shadowy figure stalking after him and he couldn’t run fast enough to get away, and his mother’s arms would chase all the monsters away. She can’t fix this. No one can. Luke is alive, and he’s walking and talking, and his physical injuries are going to heal, but he’s still  _gone_ , in the ways that matter. And he might never come back. Michael might never look at him again and see the spark of love in his blue eyes. Michael used to live for the way Luke looked at him, so much fondness and affection in his gaze. Now, when Luke looks at him, he’s a stranger.  
   
“What’s the plan?” Karen asks.  
   
“We just wait,” Michael says bitterly. He hates it, and it’s barely started. He hiccups, the tears slowing some but the sadness still ripping him up from the inside. He just wants  _Luke_. He wants to kiss him and hold him and laugh with him, he wants Luke to smile at him and brush the hair off his forehead. He keeps thinking about the morning before the show. About waking up in Luke’s arms. Michael’s heart feels like it’s breaking when he wonders if that will ever happen again.  
   
*           *           *


	11. Chapter 11

There are posters on the walls. They look like bands – four and five piece groups of mostly guys, all with tattoos and guitars in their hands. Luke reads some of the names. All Time Low. Good Charlotte. Pierce The Veil. He doesn’t recognize any of them. Nothing else in this place looks familiar. If Luke had any other choice, he wouldn’t believe all those people out there, who say he’s been here before. But he doesn’t have any other choice. He has no memories of his life, if he doesn’t believe the stories they tell him, his head would just be an empty cavern. The idea of hearing about things he doesn’t remember is better than not knowing anything at all. Luke would rather hear that he broke his ankle trying to skateboard on the street out front when he was 10 and go on faith that it really happened, than just float through the void with nothing to tie him to reality.  
   
“Are you tired?” Liz asks.  
   
Luke shrugs. He is, but he isn’t sure how to act around these people yet. He doesn’t know who he was before the accident, so he doesn’t know who they’re expecting him to be now. “I guess.”  
   
“You should sleep.” She holds her hand out, gesturing toward the twin bed.  
   
Luke nods at it.  
   
“You’re safe here,” she tells him, softly, like she knew that’s exactly what he was worried about.  
   
At the hospital, Luke felt protected. There were doctors, nurses, orderlies, other patients, security guards – and entire network of people around to ensure nothing bad would happen to him. He doesn’t know exactly what bad thing he was imagining might happen, but it was the fear of the unknown that would have kept him awake at night if he hadn’t been in a building crawling with life. There’s safety in numbers. Here, he’s alone. Sure, the people here are his  _family_ , at least allegedly, but Luke doesn’t know them. He doesn’t trust them, yet. They’re still strangers.  
   
Luke sits on the edge of the bed and kicks off his shoes. His own wardrobe made him laugh, when they were discharging him from the hospital and the one called Ashton turned up with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder that he claimed was full of Luke’s clothes. He dresses like the rest of the band does – ripped, black skinny jeans and graphic t-shirts and flannel and Converse – but it still amused him. His clothes speak of someone trying maybe a little too hard to be taken seriously as a rock musician. He looks like the guys in the posters on his walls. It’s so strange to think of himself, in this room as an adolescent, dreaming of being like them. It’s weirder to think that now he  _is_ like them. Or, at least, that’s what he’s been told.  
   
Liz sits next to him. “Can I hug you?” she asks, in a small voice. This is hard on her. Luke doesn’t need to know her to pick up on that.  
   
He nods, and she puts her arm around his shoulders and pulls him into a sideways embrace. He leans into it, and closes his eyes, and tries to find a memory. If she really is his mother, Luke’s been in these arms more times than either of them could count. He  _should_  remember her.  
   
“I think, um. I think maybe this house smells kinda familiar,” he tells her. It doesn’t, it’s a complete lie, but it’s worth it to see the way her face lights up. Luke just wants these people to stop looking at him like he’s their world and it’s ending.  
   
He is tired, so he does sleep. It’s fitful, full of strange dreams about discovering he can fly and then not being able to get back down to the ground. When he wakes up, it’s dark out. He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, and he’s disoriented in the pitch black room. He fumbles for the lamp and flicks it on, but casting dim light over the foreign room doesn’t make it better. His breath quickens, his skin contracting into goosebumps and his heart racing. He doesn’t know where he is and why he’s alone and he doesn’t even know his  _name_ so how is he supposed to figure anything else out? There are faint voices, beyond the door, and Luke can’t hear what they’re saying but they’re foreign as well. Nothing is familiar. He doesn’t know anything, he’s just vulnerable and defenseless like a soldier air-dropped onto the front line without a gun.  
   
Panic sets in, cold dread running like ice through his veins.  
   
He sits up in bed and rubs his hands over his face, trying to calm down. When his fingers pass over his lips, he feels a bump – a  _hole_ , when he investigates further, and then it comes back to him. The hospital in England, his family, his band.  _Michael_. Luke needs Michael, he’s the only one to whom Luke’s felt anything like a connection since he woke up. He reaches for the cell phone in his pocket, digging it out and running through his list of contacts until he sees the name he’s looking for. He presses the button shaped like a small, old fashioned telephone, and then holds it up to his ear and waits. He’s still breathing so fast, still jittery in fear.  
   
“Luke?” the voice says, sounding urgent and worried in just one word.  
   
“Michael,” Luke breathes. He closes his eyes; squeezes them shut so tight that colors explode behind his eyelids.  
   
“Are you okay?”  
   
“Where are you?” Luke asks.  
   
“At my house. What’s wrong, what happened?”  
   
“Nothing, I …” Luke gups for air. “Where am I?”  
   
Michael pauses. “What?”  
   
“I’m at my house, right? With my family?”  
   
“Yes. What’s going on?” he asks again. He sounds as scared as Luke feels.  
   
Luke shakes his head, and then when he realizes Michael can’t see that over the phone, he voices it instead. “I was asleep. I woke up and I didn’t know where I was.”  
   
“Fuck,” Michael mutters. There’s shuffling in the background. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left. You’re safe, though, okay? It’s your parents’ house. They wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you.”  
   
Luke nods, and tries to believe it.  
   
“Do you … should I come over?” Michael asks.  
   
“I don’t know,” Luke whispers. He hates this. He’s so freaked out, and he probably doesn’t have any real reason to be. The truth is, he wants Michael here right now more than anything. He just isn’t sure if he should say that.  
   
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Michael says decisively, and then the line goes dead.  
   
Luke swallows over a lump in his throat and tries to breathe evenly. He tries to tell himself that he’s okay, that nothing is going to happen, that Michael will be here soon. He tries not to hate himself for being so needy, for calling his friend to come over in what could be the middle of the night, for all Luke knows. He never checked the time, and now he can’t bring himself to do it because if it’s 3 AM he’ll feel terrible for dragging Michael out of bed just to come over here and pacify him like a small child.  
   
Not even five minutes later, there are louder voices outside of the bedroom door, two male and a female. Luke’s parents, he figures, and hopefully Michael. A moment later his door opens, and Luke looks up to find his blue-haired friend peeking into the room, his forehead scrunched into a frown.  
   
“Can I come in?”  
   
Luke nods quickly, and Michael shuts the door behind him and comes to sit on the edge of Luke’s bed.  
   
“Are you okay?” he asks breathlessly. He’s flushed and his fairy-dust hair is wilder than usual.  
   
“Did you run here?” Luke asks.  
   
“I only live a few blocks away and I don’t have a car.”  
   
“Oh my God.” Luke rolls his eyes at himself and covers his face with his hands again. “I’m sorry, you didn’t have to do that. This is so stupid.”  
   
“Shut up,” Michael advises him gently. He reaches out and touches Luke’s arm, and Luke’s skin prickles where Michael’s fingers make contact. “I knew I shouldn’t have left. I knew this was gonna happen.”  
   
Luke shakes his head. His face burns, so ashamed at how needy he is right now. He should be so much stronger than this, and he isn’t. He just needs. He needs Michael and he needs reassurance and he needs to  _remember things_. It’s getting old quick; that he hasn’t yet.  
   
With a quiet sigh, Michael moves, climbing properly onto the bed. He sits, leaned up against the headboard, next to Luke. Taking his hands away from his face, Luke leans back as well, his body pressed to Michael’s from shoulders to ankles. It’s comforting, the warmth of someone else. Someone he knows, even if only from the last week.  
   
“M’sorry, Michael,” Luke mumbles, folding his hands in his lap instead and staring at them. There’s dirt under his nails.  
   
“Don’t make me tell you to shut up again.” Michael bumps his shoulder playfully into Luke’s. “I’m here, okay? We all are. For anything you need.”  
   
“Can you just talk to me? Tell me a memory, tell me about something we used to do.”  
   
There’s silence for just a moment, and then Michael’s voice comes back, soft, as if he’s trying to calm a frightened animal. Luke supposes that’s what he is right now, in a way. “We used to skip school all the time. I always did, but you were a good kid until you met me. Then we started skipping together.”  
   
Luke manages to laugh a little. “You corrupted me?”  
   
“Hell yeah, I did.” Michael sounds proud. “We, um. We used to go to my house for lunch and then just never go back in the afternoon. Sometimes Calum was with us too. My parents were never home during the day, so we’d just eat microwave pizzas and play FIFA in my living room.”  
   
“What’s FIFA?”  
   
“It’s a video game. Football.”  
   
Luke closes his eyes and tries to picture it. He tries for a full minute. He would give anything to remember lazy, carefree weekday afternoons with his best friends, but he can’t. “Can we do that now?” he asks, his voice shaky and pathetic, but Michael won’t make fun of that. Luke isn’t sure how he knows that, he just does.  
   
“Like,  _right_  now?”  
   
“Yeah. If that’s okay.”  
   
“Of course it is.”  
   
Luke gets the impression he could ask for anything in the world, and Michael would give it to him.  
   
*           *           *  
   
“This is your house?” Luke looks around. He keeps hoping to stumble upon a place that he recognizes, to just have a flood of memories wash over him, triggered by somewhere he’s been before, but he doesn’t know this place either.  
   
“Sort of. I mean, it was. I’m not here much. We don’t really live here anymore, since the band became a thing.”  
   
“Are we, like … famous?” They all keep alluding to the fact that they never get to go home, and Luke can’t imagine the kind of schedule they must have if that’s really the case.  
   
“Pretty famous, yeah.” Michael shrugs. “You sure you’re okay?”  
   
“Now I am, yeah,” Luke tells him. It’s mostly true, so Luke doesn’t mind lying a little to cover the spread. He hates people feeling sorry for him.  
   
“So, you wanna play FIFA?” Michael asks, with a wry grin. He looks like he wasn’t sure if Luke was serious or not, but will be down for it if Luke is.  
   
“Can we? If it’s something we used to do, maybe it’ll jog some memories.”  
   
“Not a bad plan.”  
   
Michael shows him to the TV, and Luke sits on the couch while Michael sets the game up and hands Luke a controller. Michael sits on the floor, with his back against the couch and his knees tucked up under him, so Luke slides down to the carpet and mirrors his position.  
   
“I guess you don’t know how to play.”  
   
Luke shakes his head. “Teach me?”  
   
Michael smiles at him, and this time it’s just a real, genuine smile. He isn’t worried anymore, he just looks happy. It makes Luke feel peaceful. Michael sets the game to single-player mode and takes Luke’s hands in his, showing him how to maneuver the buttons, to make the players go one way or another, how to pass, how to score. He’s so close, and he’s warm and he smells good and Luke wants to believe it brings back sense memory of doing this before, even if he’s not completely convinced it does. Maybe wanting to remember it is just as good as actually remembering. Maybe if Luke wants these things bad enough, he can trick them into becoming true.  
   
“Ready to try two-player?” Michael asks after Luke has the hang of the game, and he nods.  
   
They play on an easy setting, but Luke picks it up quickly. Michael is loud, cheering for himself when he scores and complaining when Luke does. It makes Luke smile, and feel like everything is okay. He needed that. He still remembers nothing, but when he’s with Michael, the void doesn’t scare him.  
   
“Tell me about our band,” he requests, while they play.  
   
“We’re awesome,” Michael says, cocky and smug. “We were doing a world tour when you fell. Playing to sold-out arenas all over the place. Thousands of screaming fans.”  
   
“Sorry I ruined it.”  
   
Michael looks and him and shakes his head. His cheeks are tinted pink, worked up over the game. “I don’t care about that. I’m just happy you’re okay.”  
   
“I just scored again,” Luke tells him, taking advantage of Michael’s momentary distraction to get the on-screen ball past his goalie.  
   
“Fuck!” Michael yells. “Dude, not cool.”  
   
Luke chuckles. They fade, for a while, back into the game. They just play, smack-talking and shoving each other, and Luke sinks into it and for maybe the first time since he woke up a week ago, he feels  _happy_. He feels like maybe everything is going to be alright.  
   
“Is this, um. Is it helping, at all?” Michael asks, after the game ends. Luke won, four goals to three, and Michael declared an instant rematch but then stopped for a moment first just to make sure.  
   
“Yeah.” Luke glances at him, and then looks away because Michael’s eyes are too green and his face is too close to Luke’s. “Thanks.”  
   
Michael bumps Luke’s shoulder again, friendly and jovial but also something a little more than that. “Any time.”  
   
Luke believes he means that.  
   
*           *           *

 


	12. Chapter 12

_You at home_?  
   
Ashton presses send and waits for the little bubble noise to tell him the message went through.  
   
“Did he answer?” Calum asks.  
   
“Not yet.”  
   
Cal showed up at Ashton’s house an hour ago. They haven’t been home for even a full day, and already Calum is bouncing on his heels to get out of here. He loves his family, Ashton knows he does, but Calum isn’t good at sitting still. He never has been. He only lasted a couple of hours on his own until he was banging down Ashton’s door, demanding to talk about how they’re going to handle Luke now that they’re back in Sydney. Ashton doesn’t have any answers for him. He has no idea what they’re supposed to do. All  _he_ wants to do is run back to Luke’s house and just hang out with him, flood him with answers to all the questions he must have, but he knows they aren’t supposed to do that either. Luke’s brain is like a tower of cards, right now; precariously balanced. One added memory, too soon or too quickly, and the whole thing topples under its own weight. So Ashton just feels hand-cuffed.  
   
“What about now?”  
   
“ _Cal_ ,” Ashton says, kindly but firmly. They can’t start getting on each other’s nerves on the first day they’re back home. They need to be able to hold onto each other through this.  
   
Calum looks sorry, and falls silent, but his leg bounces and shakes the whole table. Ashton ignores that. It isn’t worth picking a fight over.  
   
_Yeah_ , the answer comes back.  _Whats up?_  
   
_You kidnapped Luke again?_ Ashton responds. They’d called Luke’s house a few minutes ago, after Calum suggested they should check on their bandmate. Luke’s brother said he was with Michael, and Ashton shouldn’t have been surprised. He should have known Michael wouldn’t make it very long after being kicked out of Luke’s house before he was back there. They’ve always been magnets, the two of them, since the day Ashton met them.  
   
_I think being in his house is freaking him out. Family is looking at him weird and stuff. He wanted to come over to mine_  
   
“What’s he saying?” Calum pesters, poking Ashton’s shin with his toes under the kitchen table.  
   
“They’re at his house. Michael’s.”  
   
“We should go.”  
   
Ashton nods. “Yes, we should.”  
   
He sends  _we’re coming over_  to Michael, and then sticks his phone back in his pocket without waiting for Michael to reply.  
   
“What’s our, like, plan of attack?” Calum asks, as they walk. It’s drizzling, soft mist falling from the sky and slowly soaking them. Ashton’s hair is going to be ridiculous by the time they get to Michael’s house. It’s kind of shitty that they’re as famous as they are, and not one of them has ever owned a car. It’s dark, too, the barely falling rain sparkling in the light from the streetlamps. It’s nearly midnight. They probably shouldn’t be doing this, now, but they’re all jetlagged and their internal clocks haven’t adjusted yet to the time difference. Ashton isn’t really tired.  
   
“We go  _slowly_ ,” Ashton answers. He’s going to have to rein Calum and Michael in, he can already tell. They’re both itching to tell Luke everything there is as soon as they can. And Luke seems to want that too, regardless of whether it’s a good idea. At least Ashton is used to being the grown up.  
   
“Can we at  _some_  point sit down, the three of us without Luke, and talk about what we’re gonna do if he doesn’t remember?”  
   
“Why do you even say things like that?” Ashton complains. He  _knows_  why, he just hates the thought so much that he doesn’t even want to consider it.  
   
“Because, what if?” Calum insists. “We have to have a  _plan_ , Ash. We can’t just do this forever, and hope his memory comes back month after month if it’s never going to.”  
   
“So, what do you want? We can’t be a band without him. And we can’t just abandon it altogether and go out and get a job at McDonald’s.”  
   
“Basically we’re screwed, if his memory doesn’t come back, is what you’re saying.”  
   
“Aren’t we?” Ashton cries. “That’s why I don’t wanna think about it, there’s no point in freaking out about all this when there’s nothing we can do about it anyway. We just focus on Luke, for now. The rest of it … I don’t fucking know, Cal, okay? I don’t know.”  
   
Calum is quiet for the length of a full block, and then he truly sounds it when he mutters, “I’m sorry.”  
   
Ashton sighs. He leans over a bit while they walk to bump his shoulder into Calum’s. “Me too. This whole thing sucks, I just. You have a lot of questions and I don’t have any answers. I don’t know what to tell you.”  
   
“I’m doing it again,” Calum grumbles, sounding annoyed with himself.  
   
Ashton frowns, and stops walking. Calum keeps going for a few steps, and then turns back when he notices Ashton isn’t beside him anymore. “Doing what?”  
   
Calum licks his lips, and then rubs his fingers through his wet hair before he replies, somberly. “That thing we all do, where we expect you to have all the answers just because you’re older. Where we expect you to take care of us.”  
   
Ashton isn’t sure what to say. He didn’t know his band was aware they did that. He’s certainly noticed it, but he didn’t think they had. He thought it had just become their dynamic.  
   
“We all do it,” Calum repeats. He looks frustrated. “We shouldn’t. I’m not sure we know how to stop.”  
   
Ashton shakes his head. He walks over to his best friend in the world and hugs him, in the rain. “It’s okay.”  
   
“It’s shitty,” Calum corrects. “We were nothing before you. We were just screwing around. You came along and you made us into an actual band. And now we’ve all got this idea that any problem we get ourselves into, you can just snap your fingers and get us back out. It isn’t fair to you.”  
   
A very, very small piece of Ashton agrees with that assessment, but the much larger pieces don’t care that he’s everyone’s parent sometimes. He’d never change it. He loves them. “We take care of each other,” he says, repeating something he said a week ago at the hospital. It’s as true now as it was then.  
   
Calum sighs, a shaky exhale laced with emotion, and doesn’t answer.  
   
“C’mon,” Ashton says softly. “Let’s go see Luke.”

* * *

 

Luke’s been asleep for maybe 45 minutes when Ashton texts that he and presumably Calum are on their way. He just said  _we_ , but Michael doesn’t know who else that would mean, so it must be Calum. Michael’s parents are asleep too. He and Luke played FIFA for a while. Then they talked for a while. And then Luke started nodding off onto Michael’s shoulder, so Michael suggested he take a nap. Luke had been half asleep already so he didn’t argue, he just crawled onto the couch and curled up, and Michael covered him with a blanket and then sat in the chair across the room and just stared at him for a while. He looked so peaceful. All the worry and anxiety gone from his face, his skin just smooth and relaxed, his lips slightly parted as he breathes. A tear or two slipped down his cheeks. He  _ached_  to go over and curl up next to Luke’s warm, sleeping body, but he couldn’t. Luke trusts him. Michael might be the only person Luke really trusts right now. He can’t fuck that up.  
   
A soft knock at the door makes Michael jump, startled, and he goes over and opens it for his friends. “You’re drenched,” he tells them, as they drip onto his floor.  
   
“It’s raining,” Calum supplies, stating the obvious.  
   
Michael laughs a little. “I figured. I’ll get you a towel.”  
   
He tiptoes upstairs to the linen closet and returns with two beach towels, handing one to Calum and the other to Ashton.  
   
“Thanks,” Ashton says, taking it and rubbing it over his messy curls. “Where’s Luke.”  
   
“On the couch. Sleeping.”  
   
“Did you tell his parents he was spending the night? They’re gonna be worried.”  
   
Michael nods. He spoke briefly with Liz on the phone. She’d wanted Luke to come home, but Michael promised up and down that he’d look after him, so eventually she gave in. She knows about them. She knows Michael loves him more than anything. She knows Michael wouldn’t even let anything happen to him – other than letting him fall off a stage and break his head open. In his calmer moments, he can at least mostly convince himself that wasn’t his fault. Other times, he’s completely certain it was.  
   
“What happened? Why is he here?” Calum asks.  
   
Michael glances behind himself, to make sure Luke is still passed out. He lowers his voice, just in case. “He was sleeping at his own house, earlier, and then he woke up and didn’t know where he was. He was freaked out so he called me. Wanted me to tell him a memory, so I told him about how we used to skip school and come here to play FIFA. He wanted to do that.”  
   
Ashton peers around Michael, trying to catch a glimpse of Luke in the other room. “How does he seem to you? Does he remember anything?”  
   
“I don’t think so, but he wants to.” Michael shrugs. He can tell how much Luke wants to; how frustrated he is that he can’t.  
   
“You don’t need to do this on your own, you know,” Ashton tells him, gently. “You should’ve called us. It can’t be easy to be alone with him right now. We could’ve been here with you earlier.”  
   
Michael bristles. He hates sympathy. He usually has such a tight hold on his emotions until someone gets sympathetic, and then he breaks down. He isn’t going to do that right now. He can’t. “It was fine.”  
   
“He’s our friend too,” Calum points out. He sounds just a little annoyed about it, like he resents that Michael didn’t call them. “We want to help.”  
   
Michael sighs. “Yeah. Okay. Next time I will, I just … I don’t know. It seems like he feels … safe with me. I don’t know why, I just don’t want to ruin it. He deserves to have  _one place_  where he feels like he’s okay.”  
   
“Michael?” a quiet, groggy voice asks from behind them.  
   
Michael turns and leaves Calum and Ashton standing in the doorway, still dripping onto the mat. “Hey,” he says, stepping around the couch and kneeling down in front of Luke. “Everything okay?”  
   
Luke nods. He looks sleepy and worried, but relaxes just a little once Michael is close. Michael forcefully ignores the way that makes his heart flutter. “Is someone here? Do you want me to go?”  
   
Before Michael can answer, Ashton is behind him, speaking for all of them. “Hey, Luke. It’s me and Calum, we just thought we’d come see you. Is it cool if we stay for a while?”  
   
Luke looks up at them, blinking. Michael watches in his blue eyes as for  _just_  a moment, he doesn’t remember them. Then he watches the recognition settle in. “Oh. Hey. Um, yeah, of course.”  
   
“Are you sure?” Ashton asks. “We don’t wanna overwhelm you.”  
   
Luke sits up, pushing the blanket aside and rubbing his eyes. “You guys don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass, you know. I get that we’re all a bit at odds about what do to here, but I’m not gonna break if you talk too loudly or say the wrong thing.”  
   
Calum laughs, suddenly, and everyone looks at him. He blushes. “Sorry. Just. Before the accident he was like this too.” He looks at Luke. “You’re the youngest, so we all treated you like the youngest. It used to piss you off.”  
   
Luke smiles too, and Michael feels himself unclench. If Luke can smile about this, Michael can relax. “So how about knock it off, then. You guys are my friends, right? This situation is already fucked, let’s not make it more … fucked.”  
   
Calum and Ashton exchange a look, both of them grinning.  
   
“What?” Michael asks.  
   
“He’s still …” Ashton gestures at Luke, and then speaks to him instead. “You’re still  _you_. It’s awesome.”  
   
“We’re gonna wake my parents up,” Michael says, mostly to cover for the fact that he’s sure there’s a big, dumb grin on his face right now, because Luke is still smiling and Michael lives for that. “Let’s go out back.”  
   
“What’s out back?” Luke looks at Michael.  
   
“It’s like a guest house,” Calum tells him. “We had our first ever band sleepover out there.”  
   
They run through the rain, pouring down now and joined by lightning and thunder, to the room in Michael’s backyard where his grandmother used to live. His parents use it mostly for storage now, so they haul dusty cardboard boxes out of the way and stack them along the walls, and then drag the mattress from the bed onto the floor so they can lounge on it in a circle. Luke sits close to Michael, and Calum lies down with his head in Ashton’s lap.  
   
“Tell me our history,” Luke requests.  
   
“We started the band in school. Or, you and Michael did,” Calum says.  
   
Luke looks sideways and Michael, eyebrows raised in question, and Michael smiles at him tentatively. Luke shyly smiles back.  
   
“Do you know who One Direction are?” Calum continues.  
   
Luke frowns. “What direction?”  
   
“No, it’s. One Direction, they’re a pop group. Like, the biggest group in the entire world. They kinda discovered us, and then they asked us to go on tour with them, as their opener. We did, and … I don’t know. We just never looked back.”  
   
“So, I guess we’re pretty good,” Luke concludes. “I seriously can’t imagine myself singing.”  
   
“We’re awesome,” Michael declares. “And  _you_  are awesome.” It’s an understatement. Luke’s voice is incredible. It always has been.  
   
“First official band practice was out here too,” Ashton remembers, looking around the dimly lit room. “I haven’t been back here in ages. You guys were a band, first. And then I joined, and I slept out here with Cal that first night.”  
   
“He made me sleep on the floor,” Calum remembers.  
   
“Yeah, because you didn’t bother showing up the time before when we  _tried_  to have our first practice.”  
   
“When he says I didn’t bother showing up,” Calum informs Luke, “what he  _means_  is that I was in fucking Brazil. It’s not like I just overslept or something.”  
   
Luke’s eyes widen. “Why were you in Brazil?”  
   
“Football training scholarship.”  
   
“He was really, really good,” Michael adds. “He could’ve gone pro. Instead he’s stuck with us in this shitty band.”  
   
Calum laughs and shrugs. “My parents were so pissed off when I said I wanted to do this instead. But it turned out okay, didn’t it?”  
   
“It was the best decision any of us ever made,” Ashton says.  
   
“Dude, you know what?” Calum slaps his hand down in the middle of the mattress to make sure he has everyone’s attention. “This is what we should do. How we should, like, reintroduce Luke to his life. Take him to all our  _places_ , all the spots where like important band shit happened.”  
   
Everyone is quiet for a moment, contemplating it. Michael thinks it’s the best idea he’s ever heard. “Holy shit. That could work.”  
   
“Right?” Calum cries. “We’ll go to like the Annandale, and school, and places we used to hang out. Maybe that’ll jog something in his memory, if he’s around familiar stuff.”  
   
Michael looks at Luke. He doesn’t want to make this decision for him, as good an idea as he thinks it is. Everything Calum said makes sense. He’s so optimistic that this could work. It could be the thing that triggers Luke’s memories to come back to him. Michael doesn’t want anything as badly as he wants that.  
   
“Yeah,” Luke says, with a laugh and a casual shrug. “I mean, it’s shitty not remembering, so. If that could bring some things back, then hell yeah. Let’s do it.”  
   
*           *           *


	13. Chapter 13

“What is this place?” Luke asks.  
   
They’re across the street from the Annandale Hotel. It looks exactly like Calum remembers. An older, two-storey, red brick building with an uneven roofline and rounded corners. He still remembers when the billboard sign on the outside of the second floor said  _5 Seconds Of Summer_  –  _TONIGHT!_ No one knew who they were, then. So many people said they were coming on Facebook, and then almost no one did. To this day, Michael is still annoyed about that.  
   
“We played our first gig here. They have a stage in the bar.” Ashton glances around them while he answers. They managed to make it this far without being recognized, but he’d probably like them to get inside as quickly as they can. Luke hasn’t encountered fans, yet. They’d all like to keep it that way for as long as possible. A fan would never mean Luke any harm, but they might say something without realizing it that could be damaging.  
   
“I don’t recognize it,” Luke says, sounding dejected.  
   
“That’s okay,” Michael says quickly. He’s become so fiercely protective, since Luke’s accident. Calum doesn’t know why he expected anything less. Michael was pretty damn protective when Luke was healthy, so now that he’s actually in need of protection, Michael’s leaping to the challenge. Calum still sees the sadness in his eyes, though, every day that goes by and Luke still doesn’t remember. Michael’s trying so hard to hide it, but this is killing him. It isn’t exactly a picnic for Calum or Ashton either, but it’s the hardest on Michael.  
   
“Let’s go in,” Calum suggests. “Maybe once you see the stage, something might come back.”  
   
They cross the street when the cars clear, and make their way into the old hotel. A girl about their age behind the check-in desk looks up as the bell above the door announces their arrival, and her eyes widen. Calum’s heart skips a beat.  
   
“Oh my God,” she breathes.  
   
“Hi,” Ashton greets her, smiling but Calum can tell it’s more of a grimace. He’s thinking the same thing. They’ve been spotted.  
   
“Holy shit.” She brings her hands up to cover her mouth. “You’re … oh my  _God!_ ”  
   
Michael is staring at Luke, his forehead twisted into an anxious frown. Luke looks a bit confused, but not like he’s about to lose it or anything, so Calum just leans into the situation. It’s too late for them to just turn around and leave. She’s already seen them.  
   
“I’m Calum,” he says, holding his hand out.  
   
“I know!” she squeals. “Can I hug you? Is that weird?”  
   
“Sure.” Calum opens his arms. He’s used to hugging fans. It happens nearly every day. Or, at least, it did, up until recently. “I love hugs.”  
   
She whimpers something unintelligible and dashes around the desk to throw herself into Calum’s chest. He laughs and wraps his arms around her, hugging her tight, and she clings to him for just a moment before letting go and turning to Ashton.  
   
“Oh my God,” she cries, for the third time, and hugs Ashton next.  
   
“Hi!” Ashton says again, brightly this time. “I guess you know who we are? Or is this just how you greet everyone?”  
   
The girl laughs, high-pitched and nervous, and covers her mouth with her hands again once Ashton lets go of her. “I can’t believe it’s you. This is insane. I’m freaking out.” She looks over past Calum, where Michael and Luke are standing, and then her face falls a little. “Oh. Hi, Luke.”  
   
“Um. Hi,” Luke answers, with an awkward little wave. He just looks … unsure. Given the circumstances, it’s not as bad as it could be. Calum relaxes a little. He was worried for a moment that this would be ruined.  
   
“Can I …?” she asks.  
   
Luke nods. “Sure.”  
   
She goes over to him and hugs him too, and then Michael. “I watched you fall,” she tells Luke, secretly, like saying it quietly makes it safer. “It was awful, everyone on Twitter was so scared you were dead when they just took you off to the hospital and we didn’t know anything.”  
   
Luke looks like he can’t think of anything to say, so he just nods again.  
   
“You don’t remember anything at all?” she asks. She sounds heartbroken about it.  
   
“Not yet,” Michael cuts in, answering so Luke doesn’t have to. “But he will. We’re working on it.”  
   
“Oh. That’s … that’s good. Everyone really loves you, um, we all just want you to be better. I don’t know if that helps at all, or … gosh, sorry, I sound so stupid.”  
   
“No, it’s okay,” Luke assures. “Thanks, that means a lot.”  
   
“Okay.” Her face is so red. “So, what are you guys doing here?”  
   
“Could we see the stage?” Calum asks. He doesn’t elaborate. He if tells her their plan, to show Luke his life again, he’s worried she’ll spread it around and then all their old haunts will be crowded with waiting fans. Their plan wouldn’t work, if that happened.  
   
She nods enthusiastically. “Yes! Go ahead, the bar isn’t open yet anyway so there’s no one in there.”  
   
“Thanks.” Ashton smiles at her, and she makes a high-pitched noise that makes Calum have to turn away to hide his smile.  
   
The floor is sticky, and only half the lights are on. Rows of glass bottles line shelves behind the bar. Calum feels a spark, being back here. There’s magic for them, in this room. Their entire lives changed here. The stage is the same too; small and minimal, just a few feet above the floor. They were cramped up there, the four of them. Nothing like the stages they play on now, where they have room to run around. If Luke fell off this one, though, he wouldn’t have done more than sprain his ankle.  
   
Luke wanders around, slowly. The rest of them sort of stand back, watching, as he looks the place up and down, taking in the dusty windows and the posters on the walls and the old amps. Michael has his arms folded across his chest, and Calum wants to comfort him but he doesn’t know what to say. Luke steps up onto the stage after a few minutes, examining every inch of it. He reaches out and runs his fingers over the cymbals on the drum kit, with the hand that’s still in a white plaster cast. Then he turns and stands in the middle of it, and closes his eyes. He takes a breath so deep his shoulders move with it.  
   
“Did I stand about here?” he asks, with his eyes still closed.  
   
“Yes,” Ashton tells him. “Michael’s on your right, Calum on the left. I’m in the back, with the drums.”  
   
“How many people came to see us?”  
   
“We always say twelve. I think it might have been a few more than that, but not many,” Calum answers. “It was kinda pathetic, actually. But it was our start.”  
   
Luke nods. He’s silent again, for another minute. Calum tries not to let his hopes rise too high. It would be way too good to be true, if Luke just opened his eyes and suddenly knew who they were. It isn’t realistic, so it’s reckless to hope for it.  
   
When Luke does open his eyes again, he looks disappointed. “I don’t …”  
   
“It’s okay,” Ashton says quickly.  
   
“Damn it, I thought this would work,” Luke mumbles. His shoulders slump.  
   
Calum nudges Michael’s leg with his foot, and Michael goes over to the stage. He holds out a hand and helps Luke down.  
   
“M’sorry, Michael,” he mumbles.  
   
Michael shakes his head and puts his hands on Luke’s shoulders. “This is just the first place. We’re gonna keep trying, okay? It’s gonna work. I promise.”  
   
Luke doesn’t look like he believes it, but he doesn’t argue.  
   
“There’s this diner where we used to get pizza,” Ashton pipes up. “Wanna try there next?”  
   
Everyone looks at Luke, and he swallows but then he nods. “Okay. Let’s go.”

* * *

 

“Does any of this look familiar?” Michael asks. He sounds hopeful.  
   
Luke squints, and wishes it did. It just looks the same as everything else has, every other time they’ve done this. It’s been a week, and every day they’ve gone somewhere new. Some point on their collective map; some place that Luke  _should_  remember, but doesn’t. They’re all just buildings and trees and sidewalks. Ordinary nothing. This place could be a scene from a movie Luke’s never seen before, for all the connection he feels to it.  
   
“Should it?”  
   
“We went to school here. You and me and Cal.”  
   
“Oh.” Luke stares at the two-storey building, bike-racks out front and basketball courts along the side. The sign above the door says  _Norwest Christian College_ , in white and green. He tries to imagine it, to picture himself, a few years younger, with Michael and Calum, in the halls of this place. “What color was your hair, then?”  
   
“Blond,” Michael says. “My natural color, I didn’t really dye it in school. Not as blond as you, though. Like darker blond.”  
   
“What did we look like?”  
   
“I don’t know.” Michael shrugs, and then looks at Luke and seems to realize it’s important, so he tries. “Um. You were really small. You hadn’t hit your growth-spurt yet. Your hair was kind of, long, I guess? But not like a surfer or anything. I don’t really know how to describe it. We should find some pictures.”  
   
Luke nods. “What about you?”  
   
“I was taller than you. Because I was older.”  
   
“You’re older?” Luke blinks at him. He didn’t know that.  
   
“Just one year.”  
   
“But you were in the same year as me? Did you get held back, or something?”  
   
“No.” Michael looks like he resents the accusation. “I have a late birthday. Not until the end of November. My parents just put me in school the next year.”  
   
“Oh. Sorry.”  
   
Michael shrugs again. “Whatever.”  
   
Luke presses his lips together, and feels bad. Michael doesn’t need to be doing this. Everyone is trying to help, but not like Michael is. Michael’s going so far above and beyond, spending all his time with Luke, trying to help him remember. Luke shouldn’t be insulting him, even accidentally.  
   
“I’m sorry,” he says again, trying to be sincere. “Keep going?”  
   
Michael looks at him, and there’s something sad in his eyes. Luke notices that a lot. Everyone else tends to look worried, anxious, or like they’re trying  _not_ to look worried. Michael just looks sad. It must mean a lot to him, this band Luke was apparently in. Luke promises himself to start trying harder to remember. It seems so important to Michael that he does.  
   
“I had like … like a fringe, on one side. It didn’t look good.”  
   
“It looks good now,” Luke offers. He really wants Michael to smile. He doesn’t know why. “I like the ice blue. You look like an elf or something.”  
   
Michael gives him a strange look, but sounds serious when he says, “Thanks.”  
   
“What about Calum?”  
   
“Calum looked about the same, I guess.” Michael sits while he talks, his legs stretched out in front of him on the grade of the hill, and Luke sits next to him. They stare out at the school. Luke still doesn’t remember any of it. “He had a side-fringe too, for a while. Then he didn’t. I don’t know. He was always a bit more concerned with fitting in than you and me.”  
   
“Were we losers?”  
   
Michael grins. “Definitely. We had each other, though. So it was okay. And then we got the hell out of this place and showed everybody who thought we’d never be anything.”  
   
Luke smiles too. The thought makes him happy. He likes the idea of being an outcast but having a younger Michael by his side. It feels like the echo of a memory – like it isn’t  _quite_  there yet, but maybe it’s coming slowly. Or maybe it’s all wishful thinking. Luke can’t tell anymore. It’s been so many days of people telling him about his own life, he’s starting to lose track of what he’s just accepted as truth because it’s being presented to him that way. He  _knows_ they’re in a famous band, but he knows it because everyone keeps saying so. It isn’t the same as remembering.  
   
“Do you, um. Do you wanna see something?”  
   
“Okay.”  
   
Michael digs his phone out of his pocket, and types into it. Then he holds it up sideways, and holds it out so they can both see it. Luke recognizes his own face, although it’s different – it’s that  _younger_  they’ve been talking about. There are pictures in his house of Luke with his brothers when he’s around the age he is in the video. Michael is younger, too. He looks the same, but so different. Long blond hair, baby features, but the same nose, the same round, green eyes.  
   
“Hi, this is Michael, this …” the on-screen Michael sighs, annoyed with himself, and then corrects, “ _I’m_  Michael, this is Luke, we’re from 5 Seconds of Summer.”  
   
Screen-Luke laughs, and so does real-Luke. “Holy shit. We’re little kids. What is this?”  
   
“Watch,” Michael urges. He moves in a little closer so Luke can see better, leaning in. He smells good.  
   
In the video, Michael starts strumming at his acoustic guitar and Luke starts singing, an unpolished version of a song Luke doesn’t recognize. It’s like watching his own ghost. Like seeing a person who looks sort of like himself, but isn’t him. Luke feels no connection to this person. He doesn’t know the boy on Michael’s phone, with his nervous eyes and the silly faces he makes into the camera, the way the two of them smile at each other. He keeps fumbling the lyrics and looking to Michael for help. Michael sings them quietly, under his breath, until Luke remembers and can keep going. Halfway through, Michael starts harmonizing too, singing with Luke but a third above him.  
   
Luke presses his lips together. He can’t tear his eyes away, but he wants it to stop at the same time. It hurts to watch – to know Michael probably can recall everything about the day they shot this, and Luke can’t. “Where was this taken?”  
   
“At my house.”  
   
“Are there more?”  
   
“Like fifty of them,” Michael says, softly. He’s so close right now. “Most of them we never even posted, because they were crap. They’re all on the computer at my parents’ house.”  
   
They watch for another twenty or thirty seconds, and then Luke has to look away. “Can you turn it off?”  
   
Michael presses his thumb to the center of the screen to stop the video, and puts his phone back in his pocket. “I … did that make things worse? Sorry, I just …”  
   
Luke shakes his head. He presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, tears suddenly threatening at the corners of his eyes. “It isn’t your fault. You’re trying to help.”  
   
“You don’t remember,” Michael says sadly.  
   
Luke shakes his head and sniffs. His eyes are burning, and he blinks. “No. God, I wish I did. We looked happy, I wish I could … I wanna remember so badly, I just … don’t. I’m so sorry.”  
   
“Stop saying that,” Michael whispers. “You don’t need to be sorry, you didn’t do anything wrong.”  
   
“Except fall off a stage and knock my brains loose,” Luke mutters, bitterly.  
   
“No one blames you. It was an accident,” Michael promises. “We just want you to be okay.”  
   
Luke looks at him. Michael’s eyes are shiny too.  
   
“Can I …?” Michael asks, lifting his arm tentatively. They haven’t really done that, yet. Luke’s mum and dad keep hugging him, and he lets them because they seem to need it, but no one else has. Luke wonders if this is something they did a lot, before. If their friendship was like that.  
   
Luke nods, and Michael’s arm goes around his shoulders. Luke leans against him, his head tilted to the side and resting on Michael’s. A tear or two spill down Luke’s cheeks. He’s so  _frustrated_ , it makes him want to just curl into a ball and cry, and he can’t completely hold it back. If Michael notices, he doesn’t say anything.  
   
“It’s okay. It’s gonna come back, Luke. One day.”  
   
“What if it doesn’t?” Luke breathes. He crosses his arms across his chest, wanting to protect himself – from what, he isn’t even sure. He isn’t sure of anything anymore. Nothing in his knowledge of how male best friends are supposed to behave together indicates it’s acceptable for him to be sitting like he is with Michael right now, but Luke can’t resist the comfort he’s being offered. Something about this feels okay. Something about being like this with  _Michael_  feels okay.  
   
“It will.” Michael wraps his other arm around Luke too, hugging him sideways, and the urge to protect himself dissolves from Luke’s chest. He doesn’t need to. Michael’s protecting him. Luke has only consciously known this person for a month, but something inside, too deep to access properly, feels like he’s known Michael for his whole life. He just can’t recall it, the way he can recall what he had for breakfast this morning. It isn’t quite a memory. But it’s  _something_. Maybe it’s a start.  
   
*           *           *

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to my BEAUTIFUL little sister Noa on her birthday x

Luke’s name comes up on the ID when Michael’s phone rings, and he smiles and swipes it to answer.  
   
“Is this Michael?”  
   
It’s a male voice, that Michael doesn’t know. Michael was sure the screen said it was Luke.  
   
“Who is this?”  
   
“Um, I’m with your friend Luke.”  
   
Michael’s heart leaps into his throat. “What? Where? What happened?” he demands.  
   
“He’s alright,” he guy assures. “Like, physically. He’s just … he kinda freaked out.”  
   
“Where are you?” Michael repeats. He’s panicking; it feels like the world just started spinning too quickly.  
   
“The Starbucks on George Street. He was outside on the sidewalk and he just started losing it, so I let him come inside and he told me to call you.”  
   
“What the  _fuck_ ,” Michael mutters; to himself. That isn’t anywhere close to Luke’s house, Michael has no idea how Luke got that far on his own when he doesn’t know where anything is yet. “Can I talk to him?”  
   
“Yeah, hold on.”  
   
There’s rustling noises, like the phone is being passed between hands, and then Luke’s voice, small and worried, says, “Michael?”  
   
Michael closes his eyes and rubs his free hand over his face, relief washing over him, even though he’s still frantic. “Hey, Luke, yeah, it’s me. Are you okay?”  
   
“I don’t know where I am.” He sounds close to tears. “I got lost, I don’t …”  
   
“It’s okay,” Michael soothes. “I know where you are. I’m gonna come get you, alright? It’ll take me a bit to get there, but I’m coming.”  
   
“Okay,” Luke whispers. “I’m sorry.”  
   
“Don’t be sorry. Just stay put. I’ll be there soon.”  
   
“Yeah,” Luke breathes.  
   
Michael hangs up without another word. “Mum, I’m taking your car!” he calls. He isn’t even sure where she is. He knows she’s home, but he hasn’t seen her in an hour or so.  
   
He goes quickly to the door to wrestle his shoes on, hopping on one foot when he starts to lose his balance.  
   
“You’re what?” her voice calls back, from upstairs.  
   
“I’ll be back soon!” Michael grabs the keys from off the hook. His hand is on the doorknob when her voice stops him, much closer this time.  
   
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asks loudly, rounding the corner and staring at him with wide eyes.  
   
“I’ll be right back,” Michael says again.  
   
“You don’t have a license!” she points out, hands going to her hips.  
   
Michael pauses, debating whether to confess that he more-or-less knows how to drive, even though he doesn’t own a car or, as she brought up, a license to legally drive one. He isn’t sure whether admitting that would lead to her letting him take her car, or to a lecture about breaking the law.  
   
“Where do you need to go?” she asks, when Michael can’t decide what to say and instead doesn’t say anything.  
   
“Luke needs me,” Michael offers, and then sighs when she raises her eyebrows in clear indication that he isn’t going to get away with half the story. “He’s at a Starbucks near the aquarium, I don’t know how he got there but he can’t remember how to get home. I need to pick him up.”  
   
“Oh.” Karen’s face softens, and her hand goes to her mouth. “Oh, poor Luke. Okay, let’s go.”  
   
Michael frowns. “What?”  
   
She grabs her purse from off the kitchen table and holds out her hand. “Give me the keys, I’ll drive you.”  
   
“You don’t have to – ”  
   
“Your boyfriend needs to be rescued, doesn’t he? If you get pulled over and arrested for driving without a license, who’s going to pick him up? You wanna leave him stranded because you think you’re too grown up to accept help from your mother?” The no-nonsense expression on her face says she isn’t going to hear any arguments on the subject, but Michael has to admit that she makes a good point.  
   
He hands her the keys, and they both hurry to her old four-door, parked in the driveway. They’re both silent while she drives, a little faster than she normally would, but at a red light she reaches over and pats Michael’s leg. Michael clenches his jaw and stares out the window at the other cars and trees and pedestrians as they whip by them. Every second they’re still driving, Luke is alone, in an unfamiliar place, scared and lost and waiting. Michael can’t wrap his head around how this happened, but it doesn’t matter, now. He just needs to be there. He needs to get to Luke.  
   
“He isn’t my boyfriend, you know,” Michael says finally, when the silence starts to get under his skin. The words taste bitter on their way out of his mouth. “Not anymore.”  
   
“Reality is still reality, whether he knows it or not,” Karen says, softly. “If you woke up tomorrow and forgot that cats exist, it wouldn’t mean they don’t. He doesn’t know a lot of things right now. But they’re still real.”  
   
“I guess,” Michael mumbles. He picks at a hangnail, rips the small strip of skin away from his finger too quickly and it bleeds a little. It stings, so he puts it to his mouth, letting his tongue dull the pain. The blood is metallic on his taste buds.  
   
“He’ll remember you, Michael. He loves you. He just doesn’t know it yet.”  
   
Michael squeezes his molars together and blinks to stop his eyes from watering.  
   
Karen finds a parking spot on the street half a block away from the Starbucks, and Michael gets out before the car has fully stopped and runs. He wrenches on the door handle but it won’t open, so he hammers on the glass pane. Someone in a green uniform apron comes over to let him in.  
   
“Michael, right?” he guy asks, although Michael can tell he already knows. “Hey, I’m Greg.”  
   
“Where’s Luke?”  
   
“Lock the door behind you and come with me.” The guy retreats in the direction he came from, toward the back of the shop.  
   
The place is empty. Michael looks around, confused for just a moment, before he follows the instructions, turning a deadbolt lock on the glass door and then jogging toward the door Greg disappeared through. He opens it to find a store room, with shelves from the floor to the ceiling stacked with cups and lids and plastic bins of coffee beans. At the end of one of the rows, Luke is sitting, on a cardboard box, with his arms wrapped over his chest. Three other employees are sort of gathered around him, and they look up when Michael enters the room and then back away from Luke.  
   
“Hi, Michael,” one says, a girl around Michael’s age with curly orange hair. She smiles tentatively at him, recognizing him – and that means she knows who Luke is too – but she looks worried. The others do, as well.  
   
“Luke?” Michael says softly, walking towards him.  
   
Luke looks up and blinks a few times, his twisted features calming just a little when he sees Michael.  
   
“C’mon, guys,” Greg says. He’s the one Michael spoke with on the phone. He identifies the voice.  
   
The three girls quickly exit the store room, making room in the narrow space for Michael to drop onto his knees in front of Luke.  
   
“Hey,” he whispers, reaching out and touching Luke’s arm. “You okay?”  
   
Luke shakes his head and his eyes fill with tears. He looks so scared, and annoyed with himself at the same time.  
   
“His memory hasn’t come back yet, I guess.”  
   
Michael looks behind himself; he hadn’t realized they weren’t quite alone. “Uh. No, not yet.”  
   
Greg shakes his head. “I heard about it, on Twitter. It’s so crazy.”  
   
Michael looks back at Luke and tries to smile reassuringly. “So, you got lost, huh?” he asks, teasing gently; trying to insert some light into the situation because Luke looks seconds away from breaking down.  
   
“A bunch of girls recognized him, just outside,” Greg offers, when Luke doesn’t answer. “They were screaming and trying to hug him and shit, and he freaked out a little. I went out to see what all the noise was, and then I saw Luke and kinda put the pieces together. I let him come in here to get away from them. We had to lock the door to keep them out. You guys have some crazy fans, man.”  
   
“Sometimes,” Michael agrees. He looks back at Greg. “Thank you,” he says, sincerely. He doesn’t know what Luke would have done if he’d been left to deal with that on his own.  
   
“I’ll leave you to it.” Greg smiles back at him, and then he exits as well, and they’re alone.  
   
“My parents are driving me nuts,” Luke says quietly. Michael turns back to him. “They’re trying to help, but they just hover all the time. And they look so disappointed every time I don’t remember things. I thought … I don’t know what I thought. I just had to get away for a while.”  
   
“How did you even get here?” Michael asks. His hand is still on Luke’s forearm, he realizes, his thumb tracing a slow arc over Luke’s bare skin.  
   
“I got on a bus.” Luke huffs a small laugh, but there’s no humor in it. He looks devastated. “I’m so fucking stupid. I wanted to see the ocean. I thought if I used the map thing on my phone I could find my way around.”  
   
“You aren’t stupid.” Michael walks forward on his knees, needing to be close right now. He thinks maybe Luke needs it too.  
   
“When those girls started grabbing at me I …” Luke shakes his head and a few tears slip down his cheeks. “I panicked. I don’t know what happened, it’s so dumb, I just …”  
   
“It’s okay,” Michael whispers. “Can I hug you? You scared me a little.”  
   
Luke sniffs and nods. Michael reaches up and pulls Luke into his arms, and Luke falls against him a bit and pushes his face into Michael’s shoulder. He clings so tightly, and Michael blinks back tears again. Luke must have been so scared. It breaks Michael’s heart. He hates how helpless he feels right now. He should have been able to stop this from happening. He should be able to protect Luke all the time, and he can’t.  
   
“I’m sorry, Michael.”  
   
“Shh.” Michael rubs Luke’s back, and swallows over a lump in his throat. It feels so nice, having Luke so close, and it just makes everything harder. “I’m just happy you’re safe.”  
   
“Can we go home?” Luke asks in a small voice. “To your house?”  
   
“Of course we can.” Michael holds onto him for just a moment longer, and then pulls back so he can see Luke’s face; so he can smile at him. Luke smiles back, although there’s so much sadness mixed in with it.  
   
He thanks Greg again on the way out, and they manage to make it the half a block from the shop to Karen’s car without anyone else noticing them. Luke gets into the backseat, and Michael climbs in beside him.  
   
“Everything alright?” Karen asks, looking at them in the rearview mirror.  
   
“Thanks for coming to get me,” Luke mumbles. He looks embarrassed, and like he hates himself, and Michael touches his arm again, reassuringly.  
   
“You’re like my second son,” Karen tells him. “I know you don’t remember that yet, honey, but there’s nothing Michael’s dad and I wouldn’t do for you, okay?”  
   
Luke nods and manages to smile again, and he looks almost happy this time. Michael owes her a gift basket, and a foot massage, and maybe a new car.  
   
Back at Michael’s house, Luke crawls without asking into Michael’s bed, and on auto-pilot, Michael’s turned off the lights and shut the door and climbed into the bed next to him before he even realizes what he’s doing. When it hits him, his heart races, for a moment terrified Luke’s going to think it’s weird and everything will be ruined.  
   
Luke doesn’t. He just turns his face into the pillow and exhales slowly. “I hate that I don’t remember. It’s really fucking hard, Michael. I’m sure everyone’s sick of hearing me say that, but it’s … it just sucks.”  
   
“Did you make it?” Michael asks. “Before those fans found you?”  
   
“Make it where?”  
   
“To the ocean.”  
   
“Oh.” Luke sighs again. “No.”  
   
“I’ll take you. Tomorrow, okay?”  
   
“Is that one of our places? Where we used to go?”  
   
Michael bites his lip and doesn’t answer for a moment. There is a spot, at the end of a beach, where the rocky ground turns into big boulders that you can climb up if the tide is low and they aren’t wet. He and Luke did go there, once. They climbed up to the top of the small cliff and watched the sunset together. Luke kissed him. He was so shy about it.  It wasn’t the first time, but they were still new, then. It’s a really nice memory. Michael just can’t tell Luke that.  
   
“Kind of, yeah. There’s a beach that we went to a few times. You and Cal liked it more than I did.”  
   
Luke nods. He’s quiet for a minute, and then he says, “You can make me go back to my house, if you want.”  
   
“I don’t want,” Michael answers. He stays determinedly far enough away from Luke that they aren’t touching. He lies on his back, and stares up and the ceiling, shadowed in the darkness of the room. It’s one thing to hug Luke in the store room of a Starbucks; it’s another thing entirely to cuddle him in bed. Michael knows that’s a line he can’t cross right now, while Luke thinks they’re just friends. He balls his hands into fists at his sides.  
   
“You don’t have to stay with me, either.” Luke doesn’t sound like he means that.  
   
“Do you want me to?”  
   
Luke shrugs.  
   
“You gotta tell me, either way, okay?” Michael says quietly. “‘Cause I’ll go, if this is weird. I just thought …”  
   
“Don’t go,” Luke whispers. “Can you just talk to me?”  
   
“About what?”  
   
“Anything.”  
   
“Okay.”  
   
Michael tells him a story, about the times they used to sneak out of their house in London in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, and wander around the empty, abandoned streets for hours. About how Luke was always worried Liz would wake up and discover them gone and call the police, but she never did. About the future they used to imagine for themselves, the four of them together in a foreign country chasing a crazy dream. Luke laughs, when Michael tells him about the time they had a snowball fight on a neighborhood street at two in the morning, and some lady in a housecoat yelled at them through a second-storey window for making too much noise.  
   
He doesn’t remembering falling asleep, but then his eyes are opening slowly, and Luke is pressed against his side, one arm draped over Michael’s middle. His lips are parted against Michael’s shoulder, soft breaths tickling Michael’s neck. Michael exhales slowly and for just a second, he thinks he should probably get up. Luke must have fallen asleep too, and then curled up against Michael while they were both unconscious. He wouldn’t have done it on purpose. So Michael should move. He should get up and sleep on the couch. But he can’t. Luke is warm and familiar against him. Michael’s slept so many times exactly like this, with Luke in his arms. He misses it like he would miss a limb. He can’t bring himself to move away. He turns his face into Luke’s hair instead, breathing in the smell of him as he falls back to sleep.  
   
*           *           *

 


	15. Chapter 15

They have a plan. Calum knows Michael isn’t going to be happy about it, but he’s just going to have to deal. Michael is crumbling. It’s slow, but it’s happening. Luke is frustrated and the rest of them have their hands tied by it but Michael is just running on fumes, expending every inch of energy he has helping Luke and being there for Luke and worrying about Luke and he needs a  _break_ , whether he wants one or not. Calum and Ashton discussed it last night, and decided that sometimes when you love a person, you have to make them do what’s best for themselves even if they don’t want to.  
   
“How mad do you think he’s gonna be?” Calum worries. Ashton just rang the doorbell, and they’re standing on the stoop of Michael’s house waiting to be let in. Michael has been Calum’s friend for longer than any of them, and he loves him to pieces, but Michael has a temper sometimes.  
   
“We’re trying to help him,” Ashton says. “ _And_  Luke.”  
   
“I know, I just don’t think he’ll see it that way.” Calum chews at the inside of his cheek.  
   
“So we’ll make him see it that way. You’re gonna ask him about what we talked about, right?” Ashton looks at him.  
   
Calum nods. “I’ll report back when I know something.”  
   
The door opens; Michael’s mum smiles at them and steps back to let them in. “Hi, boys!” she says cheerfully. “Michael and Luke are in the rec room.”  
   
“Thanks.” Ashton smiles at her as they pass.  
   
Calum can hear Michael and Luke’s voices as they approach, but they sound different. Younger. They’re watching a video, he realizes, as he pushes the unlatched door open and is greeted by the sight on the computer screen of baby faces and messy blond hair and ridiculous fringes. The boys on the screen are talking about the name of their band. Calum had forgotten this video existed.  
   
“You’re kind of a dork,” real-life Luke is saying, sitting in a chair next to real-life Michael. He’s smiling as he watches their younger selves joke about how many seconds of summer they should use for the name and whether it will make the teachers at school think they’re good at math.  
   
“So are you,” Michael returns, shoving him playfully.  
   
Ashton clears his throat to announce their presence, and Michael and Luke both turn to look at them. Michael’s faded blue hair is messy and Luke looks tired, but happy. Calum wonders about the last time Luke went home for any significant length of time during daylight hours. Michael hasn’t said it in such explicit language, but Calum gets the feeling Luke’s more-or-less been living here whenever the four of them aren’t together. It isn’t fair to his family, really, who are just as worried about his as Michael is, but it isn’t Calum’s place to say so.  
   
“Hey.” Michael grins at them. “Wanna watch videos of me and Luke being teenage douchebags?”  
   
“You’re still teenage douchebags,” Ashton informs them. He steps into the room and goes to Luke, ruffling his hair fondly. “Hey, kiddo. How you doin’?”  
   
“I’m good, gramps,” Luke jokes, with a big smile. He’s more comfortable around them since they’ve been taking him around Sydney, showing him his old life. He still doesn’t remember their friendship for longer than a few weeks, but he seems alright with the fact that they’re his friends now. “How are you?”  
   
“How about showing your elders some respect, sonny?” Ashton jokes, in an old-man voice.  
   
Luke cracks up. It’s a joke Ashton’s made approximately seven thousand times, but Luke doesn’t remember that.  
   
“I was gonna take Luke to the beach in a bit, you guys wanna come?” Michael asks.  
   
Calum exchanges a look with Ashton.  
   
“Why don’t I take him?” Ashton suggests, falsely casual about it but hopefully Michael won’t notice and will think it’s an idea that just now popped into his head and not something they had planned.  
   
“I don’t have anything else going on today,” Michael says, with a shrug.  
   
“Yeah, but … you don’t like the beach,” Ashton reasons. “I do. So why don’t Luke and I go do that, and you can Cal can hang out here? Or whatever.”  
   
Michael frowns at Ashton, and then Calum. “What is this?”  
   
“Nothing.” Ashton shrugs nonchalantly. It isn’t convincing.  
   
“Guys?” Luke asks.  
   
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Calum says to Michael. He tries to convey with his eyes that Michael needs to just listen, and not make a big deal out of it.  
   
Michael rolls his eyes, predictably, but he gets up with a huff and follows Calum out of the room. “ _What_?” he snaps.  
   
“Ash is gonna go with Luke,” Calum says bluntly. “You’re staying here with me. Okay?”  
   
“ _Why_?” Michael asks, sounding as annoyed as he looks.  
   
“Because you need a break.” Calum doesn’t bother tip-toeing around it. “All you’ve been doing for weeks is watching over Luke and helping Luke and being anxious about Luke and it’s killing you.”  
   
“Yeah, because – ” Michael begins, angrily, but Calum holds up his hands and interrupts.  
   
“I  _know_  why. And you’ve been so great, he’s really lucky to have you, but you’re exhausted. You need just a couple hours where you aren’t thinking about where we’re gonna take him next and what to do if he never remembers and all that.”  
   
Michael looks furious.  
   
“I’m worried about  _you_ ,” Calum tells him. He goes for his puppy-eyes instead, because Michael’s never been very good at saying no to them. “You won’t be any help to Luke if you’re worn down. Let Ash take him to the beach. Just for the afternoon. You and I can chill here. Relax a bit. And then they’ll come back at the end of the day and you can go back to fussing over him.”  
   
“I don’t do that,” Michael protests, but Calum can tell he’s winning.  
   
“I’ll watch Dragon Ball Z with you.” Calum pokes him in the ribs. “Like old times.”  
   
Michael rolls his eyes again, but he mutters, “Fine. But if something triggers his memory and I’m not there …”  
   
“He’ll be with Ashton. He’ll be  _fine_ , Michael.”  
   
“Yeah. Okay.”  
   
“Good.” Calum pats his shoulder.  
   
Luke looks confused when they reenter the room. He looks up at Michael with his eyebrows scrunched together. “You don’t wanna come?” he asks.  
   
Michael opens his mouth, and then he whips around to look at Calum, a look on his face that clearly says  _this was your stupid idea, you explain it to him._  
   
“Michael is a vampire,” Calum says. “He hates going outside. But Ashton loves the beach, and you did too, before the accident. You guys go, maybe we could all go out for something to eat later?”  
   
“Oh.” Luke nods, and the answer seems to satisfy him. “Yeah, sounds good.”  
   
“You sure that’s okay?” Michael asks, coddling Luke, and that’s exactly why Calum thinks he needs to be separated from him for a while. For both of them. Michael needs to spend a few hours not obsessing over Luke, and Luke needs to learn how to exist without Michael holding his hand.  
   
Once they’re alone, and Michael’s mum has left as well, Calum pops an enormous bowl of popcorn and lets Michael pick some awful anime cartoons that Calum liked when he was 13 and doesn’t get much enjoyment out of now. He plops down on the couch next to Michael with the overflowing popcorn bowl between them. He tries, for a while, to let Michael get excited over the movie and, like Calum was hoping, it leads into them reminiscing about when they were in Japan, a few months back. Michael was so happy in Japan. It makes Calum feel a little better to see a big smile on Michael’s face as they talk, and that sparkle back in his eyes that’s been missing these last few weeks. Michael mostly looks tired all the time now, and that’s so the opposite of who he usually is that it’s been making Calum almost as sad as watching Luke struggle through a life with no compass.  
   
When the conversation falls into a natural lull, Calum clears his throat and brings up the thing he promised Ashton he’d talk to Michael about.  
   
“So, um.” He rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I sorta need to talk to you about something.”  
   
Michael’s eyes narrow. “Okay. So this is why Ashton took Luke away, then.”  
   
Calum sighs. “Dude. He isn’t a toy that we confiscated from you. You both need a break from each other, okay?”  
   
“I don’t  _want_  a break,” Michael grumbles, pouting like he thinks Luke is exactly a toy that was confiscated from him.  
   
“It’s one afternoon,” Calum says. He’s trying to be nice about it, because he knows Michael is struggling. Michael hasn’t been okay since the moment Luke fell. “He’s gonna have fun with Ash, and you deserve a few hours where you’re not worrying about him.”  
   
“I’m still worried,” Michael replies softly. He isn’t pouting anymore. He’s just sad. “Even when he isn’t here.”  
   
“I know.” Calum lifts the mostly empty bowl up and sets it on the coffee table so he can move a little closer on the couch and bump his shoulder against Michael’s. “You love him, you’re always gonna worry about him. But he’s okay, Mikey. You know that, right? Ashton will take care of him.”  
   
“What do you need to talk to me about?” Michael asks, instead of answering Calum’s question.  
   
Calum licks his lips. He and Ashton have been talking about this, wondering what’s going on with Michael and Luke when they’re alone. Wondering if Michael has a strategy for introducing Luke to parts of his life that they haven’t addressed as a group. “What, um. What’s your game-plan, here? With Luke? Like about … the two of you.”  
   
Michael frowns and glances at him. “What d’you mean?”  
   
“We’re showing him all these pieces of his life, telling him about our band and stuff. Have you told him? About you?”  
   
Michael looks at him like he’s suddenly concerned Calum’s as brain-damaged as Luke is. “Are you serious? No, of course not?”  
   
“Why not?”  
   
“Because I can’t just tell him that!”  
   
“I know you can’t just blurt it out over breakfast. But like … okay, so what’s the plan, then? Are you  _ever_ gonna tell him?” Calum doesn’t know what he would do, if he were in this situation. There isn’t a correct answer he’s looking for. He’s just curious about Michael’s thought-process.  
   
Michael slumps down a little against the cushions. He plays with his fingers and then folds his arms over his chest and sighs.  
   
Calum slouches too, putting his feet up on the coffee table next to Michael’s and nudging Michael’s foot with his toes. “Talk to me,” he says softly.  
   
Michael used to get sad like this, sometimes, when they were in school. Calum always tried, but he was never very good at helping. He never quite managed to work out what would happen, when Michael would just be sad for a whole week out of nowhere, and then it would go away until the next time. When Michael started being friends with Luke, it stopped happening so much. If Michael would get nervous before a show, Luke could calm him down. When they moved away and Michael would get homesick and moody, Luke could cheer him up. Michael is a whirlwind of a person sometimes. He’s always loud and wired and reckless and spinning so fast. When he starts going  _too_  fast, Luke was always his anchor; the thing that made sure Michael’s feet stayed on the ground. Michael needs Luke, more than he’ll admit. He always has.  
   
“He slept over last night,” Michael says. “In my bed.”  
   
“Oh.” Calum frowns and isn’t sure how to respond.  
   
“We just slept, I didn’t try anything.”  
   
“Of course you didn’t. I know that.”  
   
“We fell asleep. We didn’t mean to.” Michael sighs again. “And then I woke up in the middle of the night and he was sorta in my arms. I didn’t … I should’ve moved away. I didn’t, though. I couldn’t.”  
   
“It’s okay, Mikey,” Calum says. He pats Michael’s thigh, and Michael’s head falls down against Calum’s shoulder.  
   
“I miss him,” Michael whispers.  
   
“I know you do.”  
   
“I can’t tell him. About us.”  
   
“Why not?”  
   
“Because I can’t.” Michael’s voice cracks. “What if he didn’t believe me?”  
   
Calum nods. His heart aches for his oldest friend, and for Luke, and all of them, really. If Luke never remembers, nothing will ever be the same. Calum doesn’t know what they’re going to do.  
   
“How would I even bring it up?” Michael continues. He sounds so hopeless.  
   
“I don’t know,” Calum admits. “I just told Ash I’d ask you about it. We didn’t know what you were thinking.”  
   
“I’m thinking he has no memories, of anything. And he feels safe with me right now. He got lost yesterday, that’s why he slept over here. Cal, he got on a bus by himself and he went all the way to the harbor, and then he got lost and a bunch of fans attacked him outside a Starbucks and he freaked out. A guy who worked there called me. Luke was alone and lost and scared, and he had the guy call  _me_  to come get him. Not his parents.”  
   
“Fuck,” Calum breathes, as he absorbs the new information.  
   
“He trusts me. He doesn’t have anything else right now. We’re all still basically strangers. He doesn’t know his own life, he just has to go on faith that none of us are gonna murder him in his sleep or something. But he trusts me,” Michael repeats. “How much of a monster would I be if I fucked that up just because I miss kissing him?”  
   
Calum exhales slowly, giving himself just another moment to piece everything together. “You’re right. You’re right, Michael, it just …”  
   
“Sucks,” Michael finishes.  
   
“Yeah.” He pulls his arm out from under Michael’s weight and puts it around his shoulders, and Michael leans into him a little more. For maybe the millionth time since Luke fell, Calum wants so badly to fix everything. And he can’t fix anything.  
   
*           *           *


	16. Chapter 16

It’s been a month, exactly, since the day of Luke’s accident. Ashton didn’t really mean to notice it when he looked at his phone this morning, but the date jumped out at him. June 23rd. They played the gig in Norwich on May 23rd. It was a Saturday. Today is a Tuesday. It’s been one month, since their lives were turned upside down and inside out and then shaken a few times for good measure just to leave them broken and grasping at straws that don’t exist.  
   
It’s getting better, though. At least a little bit. Luke still doesn’t remember anything. They’ve taken him everywhere they can think of, every place that was memorable to them. Last week they took a road trip up the coast to Brisbane, to see a venue they’ve played at a couple of times. Just the four of them. Luke didn’t remember it either, but it was still fun. Things are improving, even if Luke doesn’t remember, because he’s getting more comfortable with them. He’s always seemed comfortable around Michael – secretly Ashton thinks it’s because there’s some piece of Luke’s subconscious that remembers he loves Michael, even if he can’t access it right now – but he’s starting to act more casually around the rest of them, like he’s beginning to trust them. It’s an improvement. It isn’t what they all keep hoping will happen, but at least it’s something. Ashton discussed it with Calum last night, and they figured at this rate, even if Luke never gets his memory back, there’s a good chance they could be a band again anyway. They could teach him their songs. He still has musical talent inside him somewhere. Maybe they could rebuild. It’s possible.  
   
They’re all at Michael’s house today. His parents are out so they’ve just spent the whole day inside. They played around on Michael’s X-Box and showed Luke a couple videos of interviews they’ve done in the last few months and some cool drawings a few fans have done of them. Luke still can’t believe they actually have fans. Some days, Ashton can’t either.  
   
Calum picks up Michael’s old acoustic guitar at one point, because he’s bored and it’s just sitting there in the rec room where Michael’s parents have created a shrine to the band. All their accomplishments are up on the wall in frames. It’s turned out useful, like a little mini 5SOS museum that Luke can look at and see the things that they’ve done together. Calum comes back into the living room and sits cross-legged on the couch, holding the guitar in his hands and absently plucking away at it, while Michael and Luke and Ashton lie around on the floor looking through Karen’s old photo albums.  
   
“You’re like the cutest kid ever,” Luke says, laughing, as he looks at pictures of Michael’s blond hair and chubby cheeks at maybe ten years old.  
   
“I was so awkward,” Michael answers.  
   
“Don’t worry, you’re still awkward,” Ashton reassures him.  
   
Michael rolls his eyes. “Thanks.”  
   
“Was I awkward?” Luke wants to know.  
   
“Yes,” Ashton and Michael say at the same time.  
   
“What about you guys?”  
   
“ _I’ve_ always been cool,” Calum says, not looking up. He’s still strumming the guitar, but just a random plucking of strings, lacking a discernable tune.  
   
“He’s lying,” Michael counters. “We were all losers. That’s why it was so good when we found each other. Then we were losers together, so we weren’t losers anymore at all.”  
   
“We should write that into a song,” Ashton chuckles.  
   
“We sorta did,” Michael points out.  
   
“Which song?” Luke asks.  
   
“It’s called _She’s Kinda Hot_. We wrote it a few months ago for our new album.”  
   
“We have a new album?”  
   
“Not yet,” Ashton tells him. “We wrote it and recorded it and stuff over the winter, but we haven’t released it yet.”  
   
“When do we release it?”  
   
Ashton exchanges a look with Michael. “I’m not sure. It was gonna be in the fall, but now …”  
   
“Oh.” Luke gets it. “Right. It depends on my broken head.”  
   
“We’ll release it when the time is right. No one blames you,” Michael says. He nudges Luke’s shoulder, and then turns the page of the album and tries to change the subject back to embarrassing family photos.  
   
Calum’s aimless strumming starts taking shape into something Ashton recognizes, and then the tune from _Beside You_ fills the room while they silently flip through the book. There’s quiet humming to Ashton’s left, a low voice moving along with the melody. Instinctively, he assumes it’s Michael, and thinks nothing of it. He’s always liked this song. It’s a bit cheesy but it’s nice. It’s one of the first ones they ever recorded, and they’ve been playing it live for so long, it’s become part of Ashton.  
   
Then, Michael speaks. “That is the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen, what was my mom thinking?”  
   
Still, it takes Ashton just a moment to put the pieces together. Someone’s humming along with Calum’s playing. It isn’t Ashton, and if Michael just spoke, then it isn’t him either. So it’s Luke. Ashton looks up. He doesn’t want to say anything just yet; doesn’t want to break the spell. He sees Michael looking back at him, over top of Luke. They’re lying in a row on their stomachs, the three of them, and Michael and Ashton stare at each other wide-eyed with Luke still looking down between them. Michael looks halfway between terrified and thrilled and sort of like he’s about to cry and also sort of like he’s about to start yelling. Ashton’s heart is beating so fast.  
   
“So close but so far away,” Luke sings softly, under his breath, not even noticing he’s doing it.  
   
Calum stops playing immediately, catching on to what’s just happened. His head snaps up and his fingers fall away from the strings. He makes a noise of disbelief in his throat, so Ashton looks at him instead. He wants to shout or start dancing around or _something_ , but he’s just frozen to the spot. They all are.  
   
Luke looks up finally, maybe wondering where the music went. When he sees his three friends with their mouths hanging open, he frowns and looks self-conscious, glancing back and forth between them. “Um. What?”  
   
“D’you … not realize what you just did?” Michael asks, in a hushed voice like he’s worried if he speaks too loudly, he’ll ruin the moment.  
   
Luke looks confused for just one more second, and then it hits him. His face moves slowly, shifting from confused to surprise to just as shocked as the rest of them. “Holy shit.” He covers his mouth with his hand and then pushes himself up off the floor to sit on his heels. “What was I just singing?”  
   
“I was playing one of our songs,” Calum says. “You sang along.”  
   
“Have you been listening to our music?” Ashton asks. They deliberately haven’t played Luke any of their songs yet. They were planning to start, soon. They didn’t want to overwhelm him at first, or taunt him with things he doesn’t remember, and then Calum thought if they were planning on teaching him to play them at some point it might be better if he hadn’t heard recordings of them first. So he could learn them from scratch, so he would really know them.  
   
Luke shakes his head. “Michael told me not to.”  
   
“So … you just remembered something,” Michael concludes. He sits up too, grabbing Luke’s shoulders and shaking him gently. “Luke! You remembered something!”  
   
“Oh my God,” Luke laughs. He covers his face with his hands for just a moment, and when they move away, he’s smiling so widely. “I did!”  
   
Calum whoops and Ashton can’t believe it, he can’t stop grinning.  
   
“That one’s called _Beside You_ , right?” Luke looks at Calum. “I remember it. Holy shit, guys! I remember it!”  
   
“Keep going!” Calum yells. He grabs the guitar again and starts playing from the beginning, and it’s quiet and tentative but Luke sings along. Ashton joins him after a moment, and then so do Calum and Michael, and they sing the entire song, all of them bouncing excitedly like puppies and they’re probably being so dumb but Ashton doesn’t even care. He hasn’t been this happy in a month.  
   
“I wish I was, I wish I was,” they all sing together, ending the song loudly and terribly off key, and then everyone laughs and cheers and Calum puts the guitar down on the couch so he can descend onto the three of them in a big messy pile on the floor.  
   
“I remember every word,” Luke squeaks, as Calum lands on top of him.  
   
Ashton smiles so hard his face hurts.  
   
They try a few other songs, and when Luke doesn’t remember them, they focus on the one he does. Calum hands him the guitar, shows Luke how to hold it, and it doesn’t really require three of them to teach Luke how to play the simple chord progression of one song but they all crowd around him anyway and help. Michael keeps taking Luke’s left hand, the one on the neck, and helping him scrunch his fingers into the right shapes for the chords. Within a half hour Luke is getting the hang of it.  
   
At one point, Michael gets up to use the washroom and then doesn’t come back, and Ashton notices after he’s been gone for maybe ten minutes and pretends his phone is buzzing so he can sneak off to Michael’s room. Michael is sitting on his bed, his legs tucked up into his chest and his arms around them. He doesn’t quite look sad, just thoughtful, as he stares at the posters on his wall. Ashton steps into the room wordlessly, shutting the door until it’s almost closed behind him and sitting next to Michael. It’s been a long time since he’s been in this bedroom.  
   
They just exist in silence for a minute, Ashton waiting for Michael to offer up a reason he left, when what happened earlier was the best thing that’s happened since Luke’s accident. When Michael doesn’t, eventually Ashton pokes his arm gently and asks, “What’s up?”  
   
“I’m so happy he remembered something.”  
   
“Mm-hm. And?”  
   
Michael exhales slowly. “It’s so stupid. I should be happy. I _am_ happy.”  
   
“But?”  
   
“I just want him to remember me,” Michael mumbles. He sounds so ashamed of it, sniffing and wiping his nose with his sleeve. “And it’s so shitty of me to think that because this was _huge_. I should be out there celebrating with you guys. And I am happy, I really am, I just …”  
   
Ashton nods and sighs. He puts his arm over Michael’s shoulders and squeezes. “I know. It’s been so hard on you, all of this. But he is gonna remember you, Michael. He will. Today was so good. This is just the beginning. He’s gonna start remembering everything now, I’m sure of it.”  
   
“You can’t know that.”  
   
“Then I’m choosing to believe it because it’s better than the alternative.”  
   
“I know, I …” Michael trails off again and shrugs.  
   
“Cal told me you’re not gonna tell him, about the two of you.” It was a week ago, Ashton just hasn’t had a moment alone with Michael to bring it up since then.  
   
“I can’t,” Michael says softly.  
   
“You could,” Ashton pushes. It didn’t make sense to him, when Calum relayed their conversation. They’re telling Luke everything else about his life. Good things and bad things. Ashton doesn’t understand why Michael won’t tell him one of the most important things. Maybe if he did, Luke would remember it.  
   
“Hey.” The door opens a little and Luke pokes his head into the room, frowning at them. “Everything okay in here?”  
   
Michael quickly wipes away the tears on his face before he turns fully to face him. He forces a smile. “Yeah, it’s fine. All good. We’ll be right out.”  
   
Luke looks unsure for a second, but then seems to believe him, and he ducks back out.  
   
“Why do you do this to yourself?” Ashton asks softly.  
   
“Because I love him,” Michael answers. It sounds so simple when he says it, like he doesn’t know why no one else understands.  
   
“So _tell_ him that.”  
   
“I can’t,” Michael says again. “You know I can’t. He wouldn’t believe me. Would you? If you were the one with amnesia and I told you we were together but you didn’t remember it? Wouldn’t you think it was some kind of sick joke?”  
   
“He believes everything else you tell him about his life,” Ashton argues. “And you could show him proof. Pictures and stuff. He loved you, before. It’s still there, inside him. He just doesn’t remember it yet.”  
   
Michael shakes his head. “You … you can’t just _inform_ someone that they love you, the way you can tell them where they went to high school. Love isn’t a fact, Ash. It’s something you feel. Even if he did believe that he _used_ to love me, he doesn’t feel it now. So why would I do that to him? Why would I put that on him? It would just make things weird.”  
   
Ashton wants to keep arguing the point, but he isn’t sure how. He hates it, but Michael’s probably right. Ashton just aches to fix everything. It’s his personality. He always wants to repair everything that’s been broken, to make things okay.  
   
“C’mon.” Michael wipes his face again and gives himself a little shake. “Let’s go back.”  
   
He gets up and leaves the room, and Ashton follows him. Luke and Calum are on the couch when they reenter the living room, Luke with the guitar back in his hands and Calum holding a piece of paper with words printed on it.  
   
Luke looks up and smiles, his cheeks flushed pink and his eyes sparkly. “Cal is teaching me how to play _Good Girls_ ,” he says, looking so excited. “I don’t remember it but maybe I will soon!”  
   
“Yes you will.” Michael sits on Luke’s other side and ruffles his hair. “C’mon, let’s hear what you learned so far.”  
   
Luke plays, slow and clumsy, but he’s learning. Ashton sits on the floor in front of them and watches, and he’s a bit sad for Michael but thrilled about everything else. When Luke smiles at Michael as he plays, Michael smiles back, and it looks real. They both look happy, and so does Calum, and Ashton feels warm and squirmy inside in the best way. Everything is going to turn around now. He can feel it.  
   
*           *           *


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a soundtrack to accompany this fic that can be listened to [HERE](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/post/136355195501/hi-friendspeople-who-think-im-garbage-but-read) on 8tracks
> 
> Also Happy New Year!! I hope you all have a fantastic 2016.

“Are you hungry?”  
   
Luke looks up. Liz is smiling at him. She still doesn’t really feel like his mother, but at this point Luke has accepted that she is. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with her. She’s kind and caring and everything a mum should be. Luke just feels no connection to her, and he hates it. He _should_. According to everyone else, they used to be really close, the two of them. She came on tour with them for a year, he’s been told. He’s seen pictures. He knows it’s the truth. He just wishes he could remember it, he wishes he could feel something more than he does when he looks at her. If he remembers anyone, it should be her. He should have a connection to her that’s strong enough to penetrate his broken brain. But he doesn’t. At least, not yet. He’s trying to stay optimistic. Remembering that song the other day was a really good sign. Luke’s trying really hard to keep believing it means everything else will come back too.  
   
“A bit,” he says. He isn’t, really, but she seems to enjoy cooking for him.  
   
“I’ll make you a sandwich.” She smiles again and disappears into the kitchen.  
   
Luke puts his phone into his pocket and follows her. He’d been texting Calum. They’ve almost run out of places to take Luke, in the hopes he’ll recognize a familiar haunt and his memories will come flooding back, but then yesterday Michael remembered a restaurant he apparently took Luke to once when they were in school together. Michael’s taking him there tonight, without the others. Calum and Ashton exchanged a funny look after Michael announced that.  
   
Luke likes it both ways. He likes being in the group, with the whole band. Calum and Ashton are lively and funny and they really care about him. Ashton is really happy all the time, and really protective. Not just of Luke, of all of them. Calum seems so loyal, like the sort of friend you could call in the middle of the night for a favor and he’d do it, no questions asked. Luke likes the way it feels to be with them. It gives him a glimpse into what it must have been like, before. They must’ve had so much fun together, on tour and living out of each other’s back pockets, just the four of them against the world. He also likes being alone with Michael, though. Michael is the only one Luke really feels a magnetic pull to, like there’s something just under his skin that remembers Michael. Something he can’t get to consciously, but it’s there nonetheless.  
   
Although maybe, just maybe, Luke feels it with Michael a little too much. It’s been a bit of a slow build, so he didn’t notice right away. The way Michael’s smile makes him happier than anything else. The way his fingers itch to brush the blue hair off Michael’s forehead when it falls into his eyes. The way his stomach flipped when Michael stretched the other day and his shirt rode up and exposed a strip of pale skin. This week, it’s been getting worse, and it’s starting to scare him. He hasn’t told anyone. He can’t ever tell anyone. If Michael found out, it would ruin everything, and Luke’s whole world is tied to him right now. At best, he just feels linked to Michael because Michael is the one who’s always around, helping Luke and talking to him and rescuing him when he decides to be stupid and get on a bus by himself and head for the ocean. At worst, it’s a tiny crush. Either way, it’s not worth the risk. He can’t lose Michael, he wouldn’t have anything left if he did. He’d be lost.  
   
“Grilled cheese sound okay?” Liz asks as he walks into the kitchen. “We don’t have any deli meat, I haven’t gone to the store lately.”  
   
Luke nods, and then vocalizes it when he realizes her head is buried in the refrigerator and she can’t hear a nod. “Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks.”  
   
“So, tell me about the song.” She takes bread and cheese and butter out of the fridge, and Luke sits at the kitchen table and watches her. He’s fully capable of making himself a sandwich but he wants to let her look after him. It makes her happy.  
   
He already told her pretty much everything, but she’d been so excited when he did. Luke knows she’s just trying to help, just wanting her son back, but he feels so much pressure in this house sometimes. It’s why he’s been hiding out at Michael’s place. Every time he wakes up in the morning and doesn’t remember, he feels like he’s letting his family down. He doesn’t feel that way with Michael.  
   
“I don’t know, I can’t explain it. I just remembered it.” Luke folds his hands over the table and stares at them. “Calum was playing something, on an old guitar of Michael’s and at first it just sounded like notes, and then it just … it turned into something I recognized. But I didn’t realize it at first. I was distracted, we were looking at pictures. And I started singing along before I knew I was doing it.”  
   
“I wonder what it was about that song. I’m thrilled, don’t get me wrong, this is fantastic. I just … wonder.”  
   
Luke shrugs. “Michael says …” he trails off and doesn’t finish the thought out loud. He talks about Michael far too much as it is. He’s scared it’s all too obvious.  
   
Liz glances at him over her shoulder, a knowing smile on her face that makes Luke’s heart race. “What does Michael say?”  
   
Luke swallows. “Um. That it’s been kind of an important song to us. Like, all of us. The whole band. He – _they_ said that our fans really like it, and that we all like when I stop singing and the crowd sings the words back to us.”  
   
“It’s a really special moment,” Liz agrees. “Sometimes you guys stop playing too, and the whole crowd just sings. It gives you chills.”  
   
“You’ve seen it?”  
   
“I’ve been to more shows than I could count. I’ve seen it all.”  
   
“Oh.” Luke swallows again. Suddenly his throat is very dry. There are things underneath her words, things she’s saying without saying. It makes him nervous. “What are we like? On stage? Are we good?”  
   
“Yes.” She places the constructed sandwich into a frying pan and turns the heat on medium, and then joins him at the table. “You’re fantastic. There’s so much energy, three of you just bounce around the stage and if Ashton wasn’t stuck behind a drum kit, he would be bouncing too.”  
   
“I still can’t imagine myself as a good singer.”  
   
“You are. Your voice is so nice. I’m always so proud of you, Luke. You look so happy up there on a stage. Confident and happy.”  
   
Luke presses his lips together and nods.  
   
The sandwich starts to sizzle, and Liz stands up to flip it. “Are you seeing Michael tonight?” she asks. It’s almost casual. Almost, but not quite.  
   
“Um. Yeah.” He doesn’t elaborate. When she sets a plate down in front of him, the sandwich grilled to toasty brown perfection and cut in half on the diagonal, her smile is shrewd again. She smoothes his hair down and kisses the top of his head before she leaves him alone.  
   
Luke can’t eat it. He’s too worried she knows something. He’s too worried everyone else does, too.  
   
*           *           *  
   
It’s a nice-ish restaurant. Not five star or anything, but nicer than a McDonalds. They sit near the back, and Luke notices a few pairs of eyes following them as they are led to a table but thankfully no one approaches them. Michael smiles a lot while they peruse the menus and Luke’s palms are sweating. Michael looks really nice. Luke has seen a lot of pictures of him with a lot of different colors in his hair. Faded blue is nice. It looks good against his fair skin. Red is really nice too. Luke watched a video just this morning where Michael had stop-sign red hair. It made his mouth look like he was wearing lipstick and his eyes so green and sparkly. Luke wishes he could remember it.  
   
He’s been Googling too much. He saw a set of moving pictures the other day, of different times he’s brushed Michael’s hair off his forehead on stage. Luke was haunted by it. He couldn’t look away.The way hair dye ran down Michael’s face with his sweat; watching his own hand reach out slowly to wipe it away, and gently push the damp strands out of Michael’s eyes while he strums away on his guitar. Luke felt like he wasn’t watching himself. The way he touched Michael’s face, in every one of them, was so soft and almost _loving_ , with this subtle little smile curving his lips. It made Luke feels all sorts of things he knows he shouldn’t be feeling.  
   
“When did we come here?” he asks. He looks around and recognizes nothing, but that isn’t new. He hasn’t remembered anywhere else either. He doesn’t remember his own bedroom. Just the one song, just _Beside You_.  
   
“Um. We were in our last year of school, before we dropped out to move to London. It was just once, that’s why I didn’t think of it until now.”  
   
“I don’t remember it,” Luke says, unnecessarily. Michael can already tell he doesn’t.  
   
Michael shrugs. “I know. That’s okay. It’s still good food, so. We’ll just have fun.”  
   
“Was it a date?” Luke asks, before he can stop himself. His face explodes into a blush as soon as the words are out of his mouth, and Michael’s eyes widen. “Oh my God. Sorry, I don’t know why I said that. Ignore me. Of course it wasn’t.”  
   
He laughs nervously, and Michael does too. There’s a funny look on Michael’s face and a slight waver in his voice, though, when he agrees, “Of course it wasn’t.”  
   
There is a piece of Luke that wishes it had been. Then, he hates himself for even thinking it. Michael is his friend. His friend who sat by his bed for days while Luke was in a coma, was there in the hospital when Luke woke up, who has stuck by him for a month while he’s been a useless lump with no memories. Michael has been loyal and selfless and ride-or-die, Luke can’t repay him by misplacing his gratitude for attraction. It would destroy everything.

* * *

 

“Should we try another song today?” Ashton asks. He’s in Michael’s desk chair, spinning himself around with his feet, so his voice whizzes past Michael. “Maybe one of the new ones?”  
   
“Maybe _Carry On_?” Calum suggests. “That one is short and pretty easy.”  
   
Michael nods. Luke didn’t remember the restaurant, and it was the last place Michael could think of that they’d been together. They’ve tried everywhere else and Luke hasn’t remembered anything, so Michael is out of ideas. “That’s probably a good one to start with. We’ve never actually played it, though, we’ll have to figure out the chords.”  
   
“I know the chords,” Ashton says, with a small roll of his eyes. He’s the best all-around musician of all of them, and sometimes he gets annoyed when they forget that.  
   
“Are you sure?” Calum jokes, playing into it. “You’re just the drummer.”  
   
“Ringo fucking Star was _just the drummer_.” Ashton flips Calum off. “I am the heart and soul of this band.”  
   
“Do you play other instruments?” Luke asks. He’s on the floor, his legs crossed, next to the chair Ashton is no longer spinning in.  
   
“Like fifteen of them,” Calum says, grinning at Ashton. He’s making nice, but he looks proud as well. “Guitar and piano and all sorts of different kinds of drums.”  
   
“ _And_ the saxophone,” Ashton adds. He’s smiling now, too. He reaches over top of Luke for the guitar, where it’s sitting on the desk. He picks it up, and Michael sees it happening before it does but it’s too quick and he can’t stop it. Ashton holds the instrument up, to lift it over Luke, but doesn’t lift it high enough and it clunks _, hard_ , into the side of Luke’s head. The sound is sickening, a loud thunk of wood on bone. Michael’s heart leaps into his throat. He hears himself gasp, and for just a moment it’s happening all over again, Luke is falling, landing on the ground, bleeding, and Michael can’t help, can’t get to him in time, can’t save him.  
   
“Shit!” Ashton shouts. “Oh my God, are you okay?”  
   
“Ash, what the fuck?” Calum yells angrily.  
   
“Luke?” Michael says. In an instant he’s on his knees on the floor, grabbing Luke’s shoulders and trying to see into his eyes.  
   
Luke’s hand is on his head and his eyes are closed, his forehead scrunched up. “Ow,” he says in a small voice.  
   
“Luke, fuck, I’m so sorry!” Ashton cries frantically.  
   
“Are you trying to kill him?” Calum snaps.  
   
“I’m sorry!” Ashton’s voice is so high and panicked. “I didn’t mean to!”  
   
“Are you okay?” Michael needs Luke to answer before he’ll be able to breathe properly again. He reaches out and touches Luke’s cheek. “Hey, look at me. Tell if you’re okay.”  
   
“I’m …” Luke’s eyes do open, and he blinks a couple of time before his wide pupils meet Michael’s. “Yeah. I’m okay.”  
   
Michael’s heart is still going so fast. Something else is going on. Luke’s eyes are so big and his lips are parted and his cheeks are tinged pink. “What?” Michael asks sharply. “Luke, what?”  
   
“I don’t … we … we recorded _Carry On_ on the beach, me and Ashton and Feldy,” Luke says breathlessly.  
   
Michael blinks. “Did you tell him that?” he asks Ashton.  
   
Ashton’s mouth is hanging open, and he shakes his head slowly.  
   
“What’s happening?” Calum demands. He sounds terrified.  
   
“Michael,” Luke whispers desperately, reaching out and grabbing at Michael’s shirt. “No, I remembered it. My brother Jack broke his foot trying to skateboard when I was ten. You and I used to hate each other, before we started playing music together. Because you were tall and cooler than me and girls liked you, and I was jealous.”  
   
Michael can’t breathe. “Nobody told you those things?”  
   
 Luke shakes his head and his lower lip trembles. “I just know them. I … I think I remember.”


	18. Chapter 18

Michael grabs Luke’s arms and helps him to his feet, with a little assistance from Ashton because Luke is shaking and his legs wobble before they can get him into the chair Ashton had been occupying a moment ago. Luke is so pale, and Michael and Ashton both look panicked. Calum can’t feel his limbs. He doesn’t know what to do or say or feel. He’s just numb. After all the curve-balls they’ve been thrown he should have lost the ability to be shocked by anything but he really wasn’t expecting this, and now he can’t figure out how to react.  
   
“What does that mean?” Ashton is asking. He and Michael are hovering over Luke like he’s a baby bird that just fell out of a nest onto the pavement; like they want to help, but they aren’t sure how. “You remember what?”  
   
“I … I don’t know, I think … maybe everything.” Luke exhales and his breath shakes. He’s holding onto Michael’s hand so tightly. “Maybe? Ask me things, let’s see.”  
   
“What’s my middle name?” Michael asks.  
   
“Gordon,” Luke says immediately. His eyes widen, and he shakes Michael’s hand urgently, trying to get his attention even though Michael is staring right at him already. Luke always has Michael’s attention anyway, he never needs to fight for it. “Fuck. I knew that. Michael, I just knew that!”  
   
“What’s mine?” Calum tries. His voice comes out squeaky. He can’t believe this is happening.  
   
“Thomas,” Luke answers. Eyes go wider, and his mouth hangs open.  
   
“Holy shit,” Michael whispers.  
   
“Holy shit!” Ashton yells. He’s the only one of them smiling, but Calum belatedly realizes they should all be smiling. This is _good news_. It’s what they’ve been hoping for.  
   
“Ashton should have bashed you over the head with a guitar weeks ago,” he jokes weakly. He’s kidding, but also not a little bit. If they’d known another bump on the head would knock Luke’s memories back, Michael would have been hitting Luke with everything in sight the second he got out of the hospital.  
   
Luke and Michael both look at him, and then Luke’s face breaks into a smile, and he laughs, quiet at first and then louder. Then so does Ashton. Only Michael still looks like a deer in the headlights.  
   
“Fuck,” Luke giggles, covering his mouth with his hands.  
   
“You … really remember?” Michael asks cautiously, like he’s afraid to believe this is real. Calum is too. Just in case it isn’t. He’s gotten his hopes up so many times.  
   
Luke stands up and walks a few steps forward, brushing his fingers through his hair. He’s grinning when he turns back to face them, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet in nervous excitement. “I think so! Ask me something else!”  
   
“What, um …” Ashton thinks for just a moment, and then comes up with, “Okay, what was the first song one of us ever wrote?”  
   
“ _Gotta Get Out_ ,” Luke answers right away. “Cal wrote it. And we met you just before Christmas three years ago. You showed up to our first band practice in a purple shirt and we thought you were weird because you didn’t want to play FIFA.”  
   
Ashton laughs and groans at the same time. “Seriously? Freakin’ brain damage and you still won’t let the purple shirt die?”  
   
“It was a horrible shirt,” Luke tells him, his smile widening and splitting his face. He’s still bouncing. “We hated it, but we loved you. Calum got down on one knee and proposed, asked you to join the band. I remember it. Guys, I remember it!”  
   
“Holy shit,” Michael mumbles, and then he’s tossing himself into Luke’s arms, carelessly, and hugging him so tight. Luke laughs again and hugs Michael back.  
   
Calum’s heart is going so fast, thundering inside his ribcage. He smiles over at Ashton, and gets blinded by dimples in return. They both run over and wrap themselves around Luke and Michael, turning a hug into a four-person band sandwich.  
   
“You’re back,” Michael whispers, buried somewhere in the middle.  
   
“I’m back!” Luke repeats at the top of his lungs.  
   
Ashton lets go first, and then Calum, and Luke tries to go third, letting his arms slip from around Michael’s waist, but Michael just clings.  
   
Luke frowns, and puts his arms back around Michael for just a moment, before chuckling, “Okay, dude, release.”  
   
Michael does let go, but with a funny look on his face.  
   
“Long hug.” Luke claps Michael on the shoulder, and there’s something wrong. It’s all wrong, it’s too casual, too friendly. “Guess I really scared everybody? Fuck, I scared me too. I was so scared that this was gonna be forever.”  
   
Michael’s forehead creases, his green eyes looking up at Luke like he doesn’t know how to respond. He reaches out and touches the center of Luke’s chest, and Luke backs away from him, frowning deeper but still laughing, like he’s a bit freaked out but doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it.  
   
“I’m okay, Mikey,” he says, eyeing him suspiciously.  
   
Calum doesn’t understand what’s going on.  
   
“Do you … do you remember _everything_?” Ashton asks – he doesn’t understand either.  
   
“Yeah.” Luke looks at him, seeming grateful to have a reason to step further away from Michael. “I mean, I think so? Some bits are still spotty I guess, but it seems like I’ve got the bones of it all back. The band, the tour. The album coming out in the fall. My favorite song is _Vapor_ , right?”  
   
“That’s what you’ve said,” Calum agrees slowly. He would kill right now to just be able to blurt out _what the fuck is going on?_  
   
“Smaller things are gonna come back in waves, probably?” Luke guesses.  
   
Michael is watching them all with his mouth open just slightly. When Luke glances over his shoulder in Michael’s direction again, like he’s worried about him – or worse, _wary_ of him – suddenly it hits Calum, hard and all at once like a piano falling on him in a cartoon. Luke doesn’t remember everything. He remembers their band, the tour, the album. The bones, like he said. But the way he’s looking at Michael right now, like he’s concerned Michael is going to try to touch him again, as if that would be a _bad_ thing – he doesn’t remember it all.  
   
“Oh my God,” comes out of Calum’s mouth, before he’s realized it. Everyone looks at him, six eyes examining his face and waiting for an explanation of the outburst. The only eyes Calum meets are Ashton’s, looking for understanding on his friend’s face and he gets it. Ashton’s figured it out too. Calum can see it in his taut, strained expression. “Sorry, um. Nothing. This is just awesome. We’re so happy you’re back, bro.”  
   
Luke smiles at that. “Fuck, I’m so happy this is over.”  
   
“Over,” Michael mumbles.  
   
“I don’t know what to do, I …” Luke is just vibrating. He’s so excited, so happy, but so scattered. And he has no idea what just cut the rest of them down to their knees. “Should I go see my family? They must’ve been freaking out.”  
   
“They were worried your memories would never come back, just like us,” Ashton tells him. “But it … it did.”  
   
“Yeah. Okay, yeah, I should do that. My mum, she … I’ll text you guys in a bit, okay?” Luke grabs his hoodie from the desk where he’d tossed it earlier. It’s actually Michael’s hoodie, Calum notices dimly. He wonders if Luke even knows that. “We’ll go out or something. Celebrate the fact that my brain isn’t mush anymore.”  
   
“It’s still healing,” Ashton points out. They’re all stepping on eggshells, tiptoeing around the elephant in the room and trying desperately to figure out what, if anything, they should be saying. If Luke notices, he doesn’t mention it. “You probably shouldn’t drink.”  
   
“I don’t mean _out_ out,” Luke says, “just like, we’ll hang. Low-key.”  
   
Ashton nods. “Yeah. Okay.”  
   
Luke grins at them all one last time, his smile bright and blinding, and then he’s gone, and Calum doesn’t know how to piece back together everything that just shattered to bits in front of his eyes.  
   
“Fuck,” Ashton breathes, covering his face with his hands and turning away. He doesn’t want to look at Michael. Calum can’t look anywhere else _but_ at Michael. He’s whiter than a sheet, and his eyes are wide and glassy and Calum’s heart feels like it’s breaking.  
   
“He doesn’t remember,” Michael whispers. “Me, us. He doesn’t remember us. Does he?”  
   
Ashton presses his lips together and glances at Calum before answering. “I … no, I don’t think he does. I’m so sorry, Michael.”  
   
Michael blinks and looks at them, panic setting in. “What does that mean? If he remembers everything but me?”  
   
“He remembers _you_ ,” Ashton points out. “Just not …”  
   
“Is it … _gone_?” Michael continues, as if Ashton hadn’t spoken. “Like, forever? Did he erase us from his head?”  
   
“Michael, he didn’t mean to.” Calum’s voice comes out rough and scratchy, hoarse like he’s been screaming even though he hasn’t.  
   
“It will come back,” Ashton promises.  
   
“You don’t know that,” Michael breathes, shaking his head. “You _can’t_ know that.”  
   
“Yes, I do,” Ashton argues; even though, no, he doesn’t. “They said this would happen, right? That it might not all come back at once?”  
   
“It _did_! Everything else did! Just this one thing!” Michael gapes at them, and then a soft sob escapes his throat and he turns away.  
   
“Michael,” Calum says softly; desperate to fix this even though he can’t.  
   
Michael doesn’t answer. He just walks out of the room. Calum and Ashton stand motionless for a moment, staring at each other, and then they trail after him, just in time to watch Michael disappear as he walks right out the front door. The door closes behind him and Calum wants to follow, wants to pull his friend into a hug and promise everything will be okay, but he can’t move.  
   
“Where is he going?” Calum wonders. “This is _his_ house.”  
   
“I don’t know.”  
   
“What do we do?”  He’s desperate, once again, for their oldest member to have all the answers, even though it isn’t fair to always expect that of him.  
   
“I don’t know.” Ashton repeats. He drags his fingers over his mouth and exhales heavily. “Fuck.”  
   
“We have to do something, we can’t just … Ash.”  
   
“I don’t think there’s anything.” Ashton looks at him, hazel eyes round and scared. “We just … he might still remember. It might come back in pieces, like they said at the hospital.”  
   
Calum shakes his head. He’s panicking now, too. His chest constricts, his muscles desperate for air he can’t seem to draw in, like at the hospital when the doctor told them Luke might never get his memories back and Calum’s lungs stopped working. “This is gonna fucking destroy Michael.”  
   
“It already has.”  
   
“No, Ash, you don’t – Michael has been head-over-heels for Luke since practically the day they _met_.” Calum aches for Ashton to understand, but he can’t find the right words to express how bad this is, how much this is going to tear Michael apart to shreds they’ll never be able to put back together.  
   
“It’s gonna come back, okay? Luke will remember. He has to.”  
   
Calum barrels on because he can’t stop, the words tumbling out like vomit, like a downpour. “He hated Luke so much that first year because he _didn’t_ hate him. I saw it, I watched them obsess over each other. They were so committed to being enemies, it was so _stupid_. And then I watched them realize how much they had in common and turn into friends, and … even after we were a band it still took them such a long time to stop being dumb and get over themselves and be together for real, and now? Luke doesn’t remember any of it? What the _hell_ are we supposed to do?”  
   
There are tears in Ashton’s eyes as he intones, one final time, “I don’t know.”  
   
It feels like the last nail in a coffin. It feels like a fatal bolt of lightning; like a gunshot. Like complete disaster.

*           *           *


	19. Chapter 19

“Where were you?” Karen cries, as soon as Michael walks into his house. “I kept calling and you didn’t answer, we were worried!”  
   
Michael blinks and looks around. His parents are standing in the kitchen, and Calum and Ashton are still here too, and they all look upset. Michael isn’t sure how long he was gone. He isn’t even sure where he went, so he can’t answer his mum’s question. He just wandered around. It’s a miracle he didn’t end up lost or mugged. He’s numb. He doesn’t feel anything anymore, like he’s been shot with morphine and anesthetic and maybe some kind of sedative too just to top off the haze. His head is so fuzzy. He probably needs to sleep for a week. And then maybe toss himself off a cliff. That would be good.  
   
“Michael,” Daryl says, soft and kind and Michael hates it. He hates sympathy.  
   
“I’m fine,” he mumbles. He shrugs out of his denim jacket and lets it fall to the floor. Leaning down to pick it up feels like more work that he has the energy for, so he leaves it there. Someone else will pick it up. Or they won’t. It doesn’t matter.  
   
“Cal and Ash told us what happened.” Karen presses her lips together and then comes over and puts her arms around Michael. She squeezes him tight. He doesn’t bother hugging back. “We’re so sorry, baby.”  
   
Michael just shrugs. Luke remembers who he is. He remembers their band. It’s fantastic, really. Michael’s selfish for being upset.  
   
“I’m tired,” is all he says, and he leaves them and goes to his room. He shuts the lights off and crawls into his bed and pulls the blankets right up over his head. When he was little and he’d have a nightmare, he’d make a blanket tent in his bed, and he felt so safe here. Monsters couldn’t get through blankets. The future is so tragic for little kids. They never know that the monsters in their heads get so much worse when they grow up. They never know there will be a time when green fur and sharp claws and fangs will be the least of their worries.  
   
Someone opens the door, and Michael wishes the person would leave but mostly he hopes it isn’t his mother. He can’t deal with her right now. She’ll be sad and sorry for him and want to talk it all out, and Michael just can’t. The door closes, and the lights stay off, and weight settles at the end of Michael’s bed, next to his knees. A hand touches his leg, squeezing gently.  
   
“Mikey.” It’s Calum.  
   
“I’m sleeping,” Michael says.  
   
“Please talk to us?” Ashton’s here as well. His voice comes from closer to Michael’s face, and level with it, too. He’s sitting on the floor, maybe.  
   
“What would you like me to say?”  
   
“He’s gonna remember.” Ashton sounds about as far from confident about that as he could get. It isn’t his fault. Michael doesn’t blame anyone. He’s just tired.  
   
“Maybe.”  
   
“He probably doesn’t remember _everything_ anyway,” Calum adds. “He just thinks he does. He remembers some big things, but not everything. The rest will come back slowly.”  
   
“He remembered the band, and the tour, and the album, and his family,” Michael points out. His voice doesn’t even sound like his own. It sounds exhausted. “Everything that’s important to him, I guess. I just didn’t make the list.”  
   
“It isn’t his fault, Michael,” Ashton says.  
   
“I know.”  
   
There’s just silence for a minute or two. His friends are probably looking at each other, through the darkness, trying to decide what to do next. Maybe they’ll leave. Michael aches to be alone.  
   
Instead, the sheet over his head is tugged down a little, the outside air cool as it hits his skin. Michael closes his eyes and turns his face into the pillow. Ashton’s fingers touch his face, brushing faded blue hair off his forehead, and Luke used to do that. It makes Michael’s stomach churn.  
   
“Can you just go?” he whispers.  
   
“No,” Ashton whispers back.  
   
“Please,” Michael begs brokenly.  
   
“Not a chance.” Calum crawls up the mattress, lying down behind Michael. “We’re not going anywhere.”  
   
“Shove over,” Ashton says, nudging gently at Michael. When he doesn’t move, because his limbs don’t work anymore, Ashton’s hands push him closer to Calum so he can climb in with them. There’s nowhere near enough room for three of them in a twin bed. It doesn’t stop his friends from wrapping themselves around him like koalas. Michael doesn’t deserve them.  
   
“This is cozy,” Calum jokes.  
   
“I love snuggling.” Ashton wraps an arm around Michael’s middle.  
   
“No, you don’t,” Calum argues.  
   
“Today I do,” Ashton returns.  
   
“What am I supposed to do?” spills from Michael’s mouth. He didn’t mean to say it.  
   
“Wait, I guess,” Calum sighs. “It will come back. Just … not yet.”  
   
“You are important to him,” Ashton adds. “He loves you like crazy.”  
   
“Not anymore.”  
   
“That’s not true. It’s there. He’ll remember it.”  
   
Michael doesn’t say anything else. There’s no point. Nothing anyone could say would change what’s happening. He doesn’t waste what little energy he has left.

* * *

 

“Are you sure about this?” Liz worries.  
   
Luke grins at her. “We’re at the airport, Mum. It’s a little late to not be sure.”  
   
“You don’t have to go,” she pushes.  
   
“Yes we do.” Luke wraps his arms around her and rests his chin on the top of her head. “We have to rebuild. We can’t do it here.”  
   
“We just got you back.” Her words are muffled, spoken into his chest.  
   
“This is my job,” Luke says.  
   
Ashton hugs his own family, holding onto Harry extra tight because his brother hates it when he has to leave. It’s been a week, and Luke doesn’t know everything. They’ve been testing him. He remembers lots but there are big gaps, too, empty pockets in his memories. He remembers enough, though. He remembers who he is. And he wants to go back to L.A., to start becoming a band again. They’ve been playing, the four of them in Michael’s garage like old times, and Luke doesn’t remember all their songs but he remembers a lot of them. The others, they can teach him. His natural musical talent is still there. He just needs practice. They all do. They need time together, on their own, to put all the pieces back in place.  
   
Karen is teary as Michael hugs her goodbye without a word. She’s crying for more than just the fact that they’re leaving. Michael is a shell. He hardly talks anymore, or smiles, or anything. He’s just blank. It breaks Ashton’s heart, but he can’t fix it. They just need Luke to remember. Michael still refuses to tell him, no matter how much Ashton and Calum urge him to. No matter how many times they point out that Luke keeps remembering things after people tell him about them, like the memory is there in his brain, he just needs a push to be able to get to it. No matter how much they point out that Luke is going to be ruined if he finds out on his own, with no context for it to make sense in. Michael’s always been stubborn.  
   
“Call me a lot, okay?” Harry asks, in a small voice.  
   
Ashton kneels down, so he’s level with his small brother, and holds his shoulders. “I love you,” he tells him. “I will call you all the time. So much you’ll be sick of me.”  
   
Harry nods. “It was good you were here for so long. Even though Luke was broken.”  
   
“He’s okay now,” Ashton says with a smile. Harry doesn’t know about Michael and Luke’s relationship. He’s too young to understand how important it was to keep it secret. “Keep practicing on your guitar. And send me videos of songs you learn.”  
   
“I will.”  
   
Ashton hugs him again. It’s always so hard to leave.  
   
Once they’re through security, Michael and Calum wander off to find coffee, and Luke holds his ticket up.  
   
“Switch with me so I can sit with Mikey?” he asks. “I feel like he’s mad at me or something.”  
   
Ashton drags his bottom lip between his teeth. “He isn’t mad.”  
   
“Or whatever, then. He’s being weird.”  
   
“He’s just stressed, probably. This has been an ordeal, you know? He’s been so worried about you.”  
   
“So switch with me, then. So we can talk about it and sort it out and shit.”  
   
Ashton can’t off the top of his head think of a good reason to turn Luke down, not one that doesn’t involve revealing secrets he’s been trusted with, so he trades boarding passes and hopes Michael won’t be too annoyed.  
   
“What’s your seat number?” Luke asks Michael, pretending he doesn’t know, when he and Calum return, both holding a cup from Starbucks in each hand. Michael hands one to Luke, and Calum checks the two he’s holding and then offers the one containing green tea for Ashton to take.  
   
Michael pulls his boarding pass out of his pocket and checks. “26 B.”  
   
“Sweet, I’m 26 A. Looks like you’re stuck with me for like twenty hours.”  
   
The smile Michael pulls looks real enough. Ashton can tell it isn’t, but that’s because he knows. Luke seems to believe it’s genuine.

* * *

 

L.A.X. looks exactly how Luke remembers it. He isn’t even sure how many times he’s been here, but a week ago he wouldn’t have recognized it and now he does. The sun and the palm trees and the streets all look familiar too. It feels like coming home more than being in Sydney did. Maybe because he was there while he didn’t remember anything. He got to know his house and Michael’s house and their neighborhood before his memories of them came back, so once they did it was like seeing a postcard of a place he’d already been to. Seeing Los Angeles is like going back to that place, after a long time away.  
   
They’ve got their house back, the one they lived in earlier in the year while they were writing the album. Luke remembers everything about this place. He remembers the white exterior and the nice view and the big windows and the pool in the backyard. He remembers some of the parties they had here, and the new friends they met. He remembers writing and recording in Feldy’s studio. He remembers sitting on the couch in the living room with Michael and listening to him admit he thought he needed to talk to a professional about the darkness that overtakes him sometimes. Luke remembers hugging him and being so proud of him for wanting to make himself better. There are still holes in his memory, times when he feels like he _almost_ remembers things but can’t quite see them clearly, but Luke remembers this house. It feels like _theirs_ , even though it isn’t.  
   
“You want your old room back?” Michael asks him.  
   
Luke nods. “Might as well. It’s probably easier to just put everything back where it was.”  
   
“Let’s do _She Looks So Perfect_ after we get settled,” Calum suggests.  
   
“When will that song die,” Michael complains.  
   
“Probably never.” Ashton pokes him. “You shouldn’t have written it.”  
   
“You wrote it with me!” Michael protests. “And I always said it was shit.”  
   
“I am way too tired to unpack,” Calum announces. He dumps his bags onto the floor and flops himself down on the couch.  
   
“If we don’t do it now, we’ll never do it. And then we’ll just be stepping over all our crap for like a week,” Ashton says, but he just drops his bags too and makes no move to take his own advice.  
   
“That is Future Calum’s problem.” Calum holds his arms out in front of him. “Someone bring me my bass. I’ll play from here.”  
   
Michael scoffs. “Get it yourself. We’re not your servants.”  
   
“We were just on a plane for almost a full day. We’re not shoving a new song into Luke’s head today,” Ashton decides.  
   
“I remember it,” Luke pipes up. “At least, some of it. Mixtape from ’94. American Apparel underwear. All that.”  
   
“Are you so down?” Calum asks, giggling at his own bad joke.  
   
“I’m going to sleep for like ten hours. Goodnight, children.” Ashton puts his arm around Luke and squeezes him for just a second, and then he disappears up the stairs.  
   
“Ugh, fine, me too.” Calum hauls himself off the couch and follows.  
   
Luke catches Michael’s eye and smiles at him. “What about you?”  
   
“I feel like I could sleep for a month.”  
   
Luke nods. “You should, then. I mean not a month. But. You know.”  
   
“Yeah.” Michael smiles too, but it looks sad. “Are you okay on your own?”  
   
“Of course.” Luke brushes the comment off. “I’m great.”  
   
“Okay.” Michael lingers for just a moment, like he wants to say something else, but rethinks it and then he’s gone as well and Luke is alone.  
   
He sits on the couch, where a moment ago Calum had been lying. He can’t get Michael out of his head. The things he felt, before, they didn’t leave. Luke was sure they would. He was sure he just had some kind of reverse Florence Nightingale complex, where Michael’s been taking care of him and helping him and Luke needed him and was so grateful to have him and he mistook it all for something else. He was sure that after his memories came back, it would all go away. Because they’re in a band together. They’re friends. Luke can’t _like_ him. It didn’t go away, though. It didn’t go away at all, and now Luke is in so much trouble.  
   
He shouldn’t have sat next to Michael on the plane. He doesn’t know why he was thinking that would be a good idea. Michael’s smell and his laugh and his cautious smile just stuck in Luke’s brain like a virus. He’s been weird this past week, that’s why Luke wanted to talk to him. In the end, he couldn’t bring himself to ask what’s going on. He was too afraid of the reason. He’s afraid Michael can tell, can feel it when Luke looks at him. He’s afraid Michael knows Luke’s got a stupid, reckless crush and is freaked out by it, and if Luke made him say it out loud then it would be _real_. Everything is so precariously balanced right now. So denial is going to be his friend, then. He can do this. He can shove these feelings away. They’re here because they need to be a band again. They’re here to teach Luke their songs and rehearse enough that hopefully soon, they can restart the tour they had to postpone when Luke got hurt. Luke can’t mess it all up. He’s messed up enough already. Everyone is counting on him.  
   
*           *           *


	20. Chapter 20

“Las Vegas!!” Luke yells into the microphone, holding it in both of his hands and then lifting it off the stand so he can walk with it. The crowd erupts, but it’s barely a noticeable difference. The screaming hasn’t stopped since they took the stage. They were screaming before that even, when people were still finding their seats and the house lights were still up. Calum is used to that. Or, rather, he _was_ used to that. It’s been a while since he’s actually experienced it. It’s been so long since they’ve done this.  
   
“How are you?” Luke asks, casual and cool, grinning when the screaming briefly intensifies. “We missed you guys.”  
   
“This is our first show in two months!” Ashton cries, from behind them. “So you’ll have to forgive us if we suck a little, we’re a bit rusty.”  
   
“Keep me away from the edge of the stage,” Luke jokes.  
   
Calum glances across the space at Michael, and he isn’t laughing.  
   
Michael isn’t really Michael anymore. It’s like knives in Calum’s gut when he thinks about it, because he can’t do anything to help and it’s killing him. Luke is back, more or less. He relearned all their songs. That didn’t take as long as Calum would have guessed. It was like riding a bicycle, it turned out. Once Luke picked up a guitar and started playing, everything came back to him. It was better than they could have hoped for. A few weeks of rehearsal and they’re back, picking up the tour again in Vegas. It’s the middle of July, and Calum swears it’s hotter than the sun. He never remembers Sydney being this unbearable. It’s like living inside a pizza oven; sweaty and so dry it’s hard to breathe. The exact opposite of the cold and clouds and drizzle in England, the day Luke fell. Norwich tried to soak and chill them to the bones; Vegas, instead, wants to roast them to death.  
   
It’s good to be back. The screeching of fans in his ears, the bright lights in his eyes, the metallic whine of guitars and the pounding of drums in his chest. Calum missed it so much. They all need this. They need to be back where they belong, and they need a distraction from the fact that Michael is broken and still trailing after Luke like a starving, abused puppy, hoping for even miniscule scraps of attention, while Luke seems to have all but abandoned his amnesia-induced dependence on Michael. Gone are the days when Michael was his whole world, when he was the only one Luke really trusted, when he was the only place Luke felt safe in the chaos of not remembering his own life. Now, Luke doesn’t even seem to _like_ Michael. The tension between them is so thick sometimes Calum aches to just yell at both of them, to tell Luke everything he’s forgotten about them, to whack Luke over the head for a third time in the desperate hopes that it will knock Michael back into his brain. It isn’t his place to do any of it, so as much as it’s put a permanent knot in his stomach, Calum just keeps his mouth shut. He just watches, as Michael’s soul slowly dies and Luke seems not to notice.  
   
“Should we play another song?” Calum asks, into his own microphone. His voice cracks a little. Michael is just standing there, his hands poised on his guitar, fingers ready to start strumming the opening chords of _Don’t Stop_.  
   
“We were superheroes for the video of this next one,” Luke tells the audience – more screaming. “How could I have ever forgotten that, right?”  
   
He’s playing with it, with the whole thing; using it as fodder for crowd-hyping. Making a joke out of the near fatal tragedy that has consumed their lives since May. And Calum doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t know what else Luke is supposed to do, but move on and laugh about it, now that it’s over. He’d probably do the same, were their circumstances flipped. But it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Because for Michael, it isn’t over.

* * *

 

Getting back on stage feels like another piece to the puzzle Luke’s been struggling to reassemble for two months. They’ve played six shows now, and they were a bit unpracticed at first but they get better with each one. _Luke_ gets better with each one, and another step closer to feeling like he’s regaining the person he was before the accident. The others were wary, unsure if Luke was really ready to pick up the tour again so quickly, but Luke insisted and he’s glad he did. This is just where he’s supposed to be, on stage every evening, on the bus overnight, and in a new city by the morning.  
   
They’re heading toward Seattle, and it’s still hot but it’s a nice break from the dry heat of inland California in July. At least here there is moisture in the air. At least the spray of the sea feels cool on Luke’s skin. They’re on a deserted beach, just the four of them. It’s five a.m. They should have been sleeping, but they weren’t, so Ashton asked their driver to pull over. He’s still on the bus, while Luke and his band run around on the sand in the dim, blue light of very early morning.  
   
“How much further do we have to go?” Calum asks.  
   
“He said about an hour,” Ashton answers. He’s sitting on the ground, with his feet stretched out in front of him so the gentle waves lap at his toes as they crest over the sand.  
   
“Do you think Zoe is gonna freak out when we don’t show up on time?” Calum wonders. He’s grinning, though. He doesn’t mind if she does.  
   
“She’ll probably just text me, and then I’ll tell her we aren’t dead, and she’ll go back to sleep.” Ashton picks up a small stone and tosses it into the water, trying to skip it but instead it just plunks down and disappears beneath the surface on first contact. “The show isn’t for like fifteen hours.”  
   
Luke looks up at the sky. It’s navy blue, and the smattering of stars is still visible but faint, disappearing with each passing minute as the sun gets closer to the horizon in the distance. It hasn’t poked up over the skyline yet, but there’s an orange glow where it will soon be. When he looks back down at his band, he catches Michael’s eye. Michael’s lips curve slowly into a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Luke tries to smile back. He probably doesn’t accomplish it well enough to be convincing.  
   
“Cal, come for a walk with me?” Luke says.  
   
Calum looks over at him, but Luke’s eyes stay locked on Michael’s. He watches, a pit in his stomach, as Michael’s half-hearted grin fades away as quick as it came, and he sits down in the sand next to Ashton, pulling his legs up in front of his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Ashton’s arm goes immediately around Michael’s slouched shoulders. Luke’s stomach clenches a little more. Ashton has been such a mother hen around Michael lately, even more so than he usually is with the rest of them. Luke’s so scared he knows exactly what it’s about. Way too scared to say it out loud. It’s the only thing that hasn’t fallen back into place.  
   
Calum walks with him along the beach, following the path of the water’s edge. The sand is cool and soft under Luke’s bare feet, squishy where it’s wet. He’s been avoiding Michael as much as he can since they got back on the road, which is a lot easier said than done when they now live on a tour bus together. It’s just back and forth, between the stage and the hotels and the press events and radio shows. There’s no escape. Nowhere Luke can run where he isn’t playing the risk of seeing Michael’s eyes, his smile, his blue hair faded into a sort of silver, with dark roots coming in closer to his scalp. It might be more than a crush, and it scares Luke so much it makes him feel sick when he thinks about it.  
   
He can see the way it hurts Michael, when Luke brushes him off or pretends not to have heard him speak or rebuffs him when Michael wants to get coffee or play a game on the console in the back of the bus. Calum and Ashton like to explore when they get to a new city, even if it’s one they’ve been to before, and Luke has been going with them, leaving Michael alone in the hotel. They always tell Michael he’s welcome to come along, but he never does, and Luke is secretly glad. It hurts too much to be around him.  
   
He’s so worried Michael knows. He’s worried it’s the cause of the strain between them, because he can’t imagine what else it would be. Michael felt it, back when Luke didn’t remember anything and Michael was the only point on his compass. He felt Luke falling in love with him, before Luke knew it himself, and he never said anything because he’s decent and he didn’t want to make it weird. He put Luke’s needs ahead of his own discomfort. And now that Luke remembers his life, his feelings for Michael didn’t go away like they were supposed to and Michael can feel that too. Luke hates himself for it. He almost destroyed this band once, he’s determined not to do it again. His feelings don’t matter. The band is more important.  
   
“Everything okay?” Calum asks softly. He knows it isn’t. They can all tell. Luke just denies it anyway. He doesn’t know what else he’s supposed to do.  
   
“Yeah, ‘course. Excited for tonight?”  
   
“Sure.” Calum smiles at him, but it’s tinged in sadness.  
   
There’s a lot of that going around lately, Luke thinks.

* * *

 

Ashton and Luke go out for the evening, on their night off in a place in Canada called Edmonton. They wanted to go as a band, but Michael doesn’t feel like socializing tonight, so Calum stays with him. Michael tells Calum to go, but he shakes his head and plops down next to Michael on the couch in their room. He’s a better friend than Michael deserves. He has been for ten years.  
   
“Are you ever gonna tell him?” Calum asks, once the door closes behind Ashton and Luke, dressed to impress and briefly leaving a cloud of sweet smelling cologne behind them. It makes Michael’s mouth water to imagine smelling it right on Luke’s skin. Then it makes him nauseous.  
   
“No,” he answers. He’s said it so many times. He doesn’t know why it’s such a difficult concept for his friends to grasp. To Michael, it’s so simple.  
   
“He still loves you, Michael.”  
   
“He doesn’t,” Michael counters, flatly. It’s such a pointless argument. “He used to. He doesn’t want me like that now.”  
   
“How do you know that unless you talk to him about it?” Calum presses.  
   
“He barely even looks at me.”  
   
“Maybe he just doesn’t know what to say.”  
   
“There isn’t anything _to_ say. He got his memories back. All of them but us. The accident killed the part of his brain that loves me,” Michael says, in a final sort of way, and then changes the subject. Calum doesn’t bring it up again.  
   
They just hang out. Order a pizza and watch a standup comedian on Netflix and chat about nothing. It’s relaxing, and Michael’s been stressed for what feels like a year. He needed it. Then, when he’s in the hallway filling up the ice machine, he sees Luke again. Walking towards Michael down the hallway, and someone is with him, but it isn’t Ashton. It’s a girl. And Michael’s heart breaks all over again.  
   
She’s small and pretty, blue eyes and blond hair and sun-kissed skin. Luke doesn’t say anything as he leads her past Michael, but she smiles politely at Michael, and she looks nice. She looks like she’s probably a good person. She’s probably perfect for Luke, in all the ways Michael has never been. She’s probably clever and smart and adventurous; she probably isn’t obnoxious and nerdy and awkward and uncoordinated. She probably doesn’t trip over her own feet, or laugh too loudly, or need too much. She’s probably cool and breezy, feminine enough to make Luke feel like a man but independent and strong. She’s probably everything that Michael isn’t, and Luke might as well have stuck a dagger into Michael’s chest in the space between two ribs.  
   
It isn’t his fault. Michael can’t be angry with him. Luke hasn’t done anything wrong. He isn’t in a relationship with anyone else, and she’s an adult who appears to be consenting to what’s about to happen. No rules have been broken; Michael has no grounds to object to this. So he doesn’t.  
   
The door to Michael’s room opens, and Calum’s head pokes out. “Hey, what’s – ” he begins, but then he follows Michael’s eye-line, to Luke’s broad back and the girl’s smaller frame, as they disappear into Luke’s room.  
   
Calum takes the ice bucket from Michael’s hands. “C’mon,” he says gently. He leads Michael back in from the hallway. Michael sits, frozen, on the couch. He can’t move. He can’t even breathe. He might be about to throw up, but he doesn’t have the strength to make it to the bathroom so instead he just clenches his jaw and wills his stomach to settle. It doesn’t really work. Calum is staring at him, but Michael can’t look back. He can’t see his best friend’s eyes right now. They’ll be full of sadness and sympathy, and Michael can’t handle it. He gives up. Still fully clothed, he gets up like a zombie and collapses into the bed. Sleep is the only thing that will end this.  
   
She’s giggling. He can hear it. The walls are so thin, and it’s right next door. Michael lies on his back, his hands covering his face, and tries to tune them out, but he can’t. Bedsprings squeak. Luke moans, long and low, and Michael knows that sound. He’s been responsible for that sound, nearly every day for years. He could make it better for Luke, what’s happening right now. The girl may be beautiful but she doesn’t know Luke like Michael does. She doesn’t know he likes to be kissed just under his ear. She doesn’t know the exact way to move her tongue along the veins in his cock. She doesn’t know he likes to be touched gently after he comes, until it’s too sensitive and he’s twitching. She doesn’t know how amazing it feels to be the person Luke loves. She’ll never know that. She’s a one-night-stand, and she can have Luke for tonight but she won’t get anything close to forever.  
   
Except Michael doesn’t have Luke like that anymore either. And right now, she does. Even if it’s only for tonight, it’s more of Luke than Michael has right now. He hates her.  
   
The mattress dips, and Calum crawls into bed with him wordlessly, curling up against his side and resting his arm across Michael’s stomach. Tears run down Michael’s face, and he tries to blink them away but he can’t.  
   
“ _Just like that_.” Her voice echoes through the walls, and Luke moans again. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to Michael’s ears.  
   
“Fuck,” Michael whispers.  
   
“I’m so sorry, Mikey,” Calum whispers back.  
   
Michael dissolves further into tears; big, sad ones that he can’t hold back, and turns into his friend. Calum wraps his arms around Michael’s back and Michael sobs into his chest. There isn’t anything Calum could say to make it better, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He just holds Michael and lets him cry.  
   
*           *           *


	21. Chapter 21

They’re in New Jersey. In Holmdel, where Bruce Springsteen is from. Ashton wants to be excited about it. He should be. It’s hard to be excited about anything these days. He doesn’t know what he was expecting when they went back on the road, but it wasn’t this. Ashton thought things would get better. He thought they would get their dynamic back, that indescribable _thing_ that makes them who they are when they’re together. The thing people liked about them, the reason they ever got out of Sydney. It wasn’t just the music. Ashton knows that. Lots of people are good at music. It was something else, something about their group and the way they interact, that drew people’s attention. Ashton can’t define it but he’s always felt it, and now it’s slipping away. He keeps thinking one day they’ll all just wake up and Luke will remember everything, and then they’ll reset back to normal. It hasn’t happened yet, and Ashton is usually the resident annoyingly sunny optimist but even he is losing hope.  
   
It’s possible this is just how things will be, now. Ashton won’t admit it out loud. He thinks his and Calum’s insistence that Luke will remember one day might be the only thing keeping Michael together at all. They’re both lying, though. And Michael must know that, he _does_ know it, but maybe there’s comfort in collective delusion. Or maybe Michael just has no choice. There’s nothing else for him to hope for.  
   
“Zoe mentioned some restaurant we have to check out,” Ashton says, calling out the open bathroom door to the rest of his band, in their various positions on the bus. He squints at the small mirror and messes with his hair.  
   
“Sounds good,” Luke says, distractedly, curled in his bunk and buried in his phone. Ashton can see him through the mirror. He can’t see the others, though. The door to the lounge in the back is closed, so he knocks on it briefly and then opens it. Calum is stretched out on the couch with his eyes shut, but he isn’t sleeping. His foot is moving. And Michael is sitting on the floor, also scrolling through his phone. He’s blond again. His hair was black for a while, and then he put colored streaks in it, and then got bored and bleached it out. It’s darker blond this time, though, than it was when he bleached it last year. It’s closer to what Ashton remembers of his natural color. It makes him look younger, even though the last few months have probably aged them all.  
   
“Thought this might be where Gerard Way is from,” Michael is saying. “It isn’t, though. A different town.”  
   
Calum hums in vague acknowledgment of the words.  
   
“Are you guys ready?” Ashton asks.  
   
“I’m gonna stay,” Michael says, predictably.  
   
“Then so am I,” Calum says, also predictably.  
   
Ashton sighs. “Please come? We never do stuff as a band anymore.”  
   
Michael doesn’t answer. Calum opens his eyes and Ashton looks at him, trying to plead without words. He misses them both, but especially Calum. They used to be so close, and now Michael never wants to go anywhere with Luke if he doesn’t have to, and Calum always stays with him.  
   
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Calum asks, pushing himself up off the couch. He walks past Ashton, a tight fit in the small doorway, and Ashton follows him outside into the carpark.  
   
“We want you to come with us,” Ashton tells him, before Calum can say anything. “Please? I know it’s awkward between them, okay, but this sucks so much. I miss being all together.”  
   
“Michael doesn’t want to.” Calum looks apologetic, but shrugs. “I’m not gonna make him. Besides, Luke doesn’t really seem to like spending time with Michael anymore anyway.”  
   
Ashton’s noticed that too. He has no idea what it means. “What, then? What are we here to talk about?”  
   
“You gotta stop letting Luke sleep with strangers.”  
   
Ashton blinks. “How am I _letting_ him?”  
   
Calum just fixes him with a look. “It doesn’t happen when he’s with me.”  
   
“Because he’s never _with_ you!” Ashton protests. He doesn’t like this any better than Calum does. Luke isn’t supposed to be with anyone else, and he’s being reckless about it. But Ashton doesn’t see why he’s being blamed for it.  
   
“Just. Watch him, okay? Do you have any idea how hard this is on Michael? To know Luke’s doing this? To see him bringing girls back to hotel rooms?”  
   
“Yeah, of course I do!” Ashton cries. “How is it my fault? He sees someone and wants to fuck them, what would you like me to do about it? Tell him he’s not allowed?”  
   
“You could try!”  
   
“That’s ridiculous and you know it.” Ashton glares at him, and hates this. They never fight. “I can’t just _watch him_ , Cal, he’s not a dog.”  
   
“Or whatever! Make something up, I don’t care! Michael can’t take this anymore.”  
   
“Well I’m sorry this isn’t fun for you and your new best friend _Michael_ , but there’s nothing I can fucking do about it. You want Luke to stop screwing around, _you_ tell him.” Ashton intentionally bumps into Calum’s shoulder as he walks past him.  
   
Luke is still in his bunk, and Ashton’s mad now, so he goes over and smacks Luke’s ankle. “Get up already.”  
   
“Ow, what the fuck?” Luke complains. “Is Calum coming?”  
   
He doesn’t ask about Michael. He never does. Ashton doesn’t care anymore. “No. Just you and me. Are you coming or what?”  
   
“Yeah, Jesus, just hold on,” Luke grumbles. He gets up and goes into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. So now everyone is upset. The thought leaves Ashton oddly satisfied, in a sadistic way. They haven’t been functioning lately anyway. They might as well be pissed at each other too.  
   
Calum comes back onto the bus, looking just as annoyed as Ashton feels. “Are you gonna talk to him?” he asks, in a hushed voice.  
   
Ashton ignores him. When Luke emerges from the bathroom a moment later, they leave together without a word. Just before Ashton shuts the door behind himself, he hears Calum’s voice saying, “Fuck them, anyway, it doesn’t matter.”  
   
He doesn’t want to know what Michael asked.

* * *

 

It’s the middle of the night, and Calum can’t sleep. He’s lost track of where they are. Somewhere on the coast. They have a show tomorrow night. At least one of them should know the name of the city they’re in, so they can yell it to the crowd. Usually that’s Luke’s job, so Calum won’t bother with it. There’s only a couple of shows left, and then it’s done. Their very first headlining world tour. This should be such a big moment for them, for their band, and instead everything is wrong. Michael and Luke are avoiding each other like they’re contagious. Calum is mad at Luke for hurting Michael even though it isn’t his fault at all. He’s mad at Michael for refusing to tell Luke the truth, even though he knows Michael can’t. He’s mad at Ashton, too, for reasons he doesn’t even understand.  
   
There’s quiet music floating through the walls, from the room next to Calum’s. He’s trying to remember which one of them is in there, and which two are across the hall. He’s pretty sure it’s Luke. Either way, if someone else is awake at four in the morning, they should be insomniacs together.  
   
Calum knocks softly on the door, in case Luke actually is sleeping and just forgot to turn the music off. There are noises inside, though, and a moment later the door opens a sliver and a rumpled, exhausted looking Luke peers at him through the gap.  
   
“Everything okay?” he asks, his voice scratchy.  
   
Calum nods. “Sorry, were you asleep?”  
   
“No, I … no.” Luke sighs. “Can’t.”  
   
“Me neither.”  
   
Luke opens the door wider to let Calum in, and goes back to his bed. He collapses down on it, and then reaches over for his phone to shut the song off. Calum sits on the edge of the mattress. There’s always so much he wants to say. He wants to just spill the secret. To shatter everything, and just see where that leads. He won’t, though. If it ended badly, it might ruin whatever chance there is left that one of these days Luke will remember and they’ll be able to start over.  
   
“Did you sleep at all?” Calum asks.  
   
“A bit. You?”  
   
“A bit,” Calum echoes. He aches to ask Luke about Michael. Luke must feel it; how off center they’ve all been lately. He must notice. Calum wants so badly to know what Luke thinks is going on. He won’t do that, either. It would open a whole can of worms that Calum isn’t prepared at all to deal with.  
   
“Wanna watch TV?” Luke suggests.  
   
Calum nods, and occupies the empty space in the bed next to Luke after Luke shifts over to make room for him. Hotel television is crappy at the best of times, and it isn’t exactly prime viewing hours, but they find an old _Family Guy_ rerun and it’s one Calum’s seen a hundred times but it’s better than awkward silence.  
   
A while later, as the sun is starting to come up, peeking over the horizon they can see through the window, Calum has an idea. He doesn’t know where it comes from. He doesn’t know why he didn’t think of it weeks ago. He doesn’t even really think it will work, but he’s at the end of his rope.  
   
“Could we put music back on?” he asks.  
   
Luke looks up. He’s been dozing a bit, on and off, during the commercials. “You don’t wanna watch anymore?”  
   
“I’ve seen this one too many times,” Calum tells him. There’s a marathon on, and it’s the third episode they’ve watched.  
   
“Yeah. Okay.” Luke reaches for the remote to shut the TV off, and then for his phone.  
   
“Can I play something?” Calum asks, before Luke has put anything on.  
   
“Go for it.”  
   
Calum scrolls until he finds their band on his phone. Michael took _Wrapped Around Your Finger_ off the setlist, after Luke was better and they were going to start playing shows again. He said it would be too hard to play that one, the one he and Luke wrote together. The one that’s indirectly about _them_. Ashton and Calum didn’t argue, and they never told Luke. Calum doesn’t know if Luke’s found this song on his own. He probably has. When he didn’t remember anything, back in Sydney, he listened to their music. He probably heard it then. But that was months ago, and maybe he hasn’t listened to it since.  
   
It’s a one-in-a-million chance, that this will do anything at all. It’s a chance Calum takes, because he’s willing at this point to try anything. They can’t keep going like this, the way it’s been between them the last few weeks. Something has to break.  
   
He taps the song and it begins, dreamy synths and soft drumming. Then Michael’s voice comes in, unpolished and imperfect because they rushed to record this one. Calum’s always liked how it sounds, though. The beat picks up when Luke’s voice comes in, and guitars join the dissonant harmonies. Calum’s heart is beating fast, and he isn’t looking at Luke.  
   
Michael’s guitar solo after the bridge is whiny and gritty. His voice is, as well, when it starts chanting the repeated chorus, _I’m wrapped around your finger, I’m wrapped around your finger, I’m wrapped around your finger._ When they play this one live, Michael makes it _wrapped around your fucking finger_ sometimes. This song means everything to him.  
   
All at once, Luke sits up. The movement startles Calum, and he sits up too. His phone slips off his chest and bounces to the floor. The song is muffled, but still playing. Luke’s hands are over his mouth. He’s breathing so hard.  
   
“Luke?” Calum grabs his shoulder. “Hey, what? Are you okay?”  
   
“Michael,” Luke whispers. He looks at Calum, his eyes huge.  
   
Calum blinks. This can’t be what it looks like. This plan was so stupid and senseless, there’s no way it actually _worked_. Calum must be reading into this something that isn’t there. Something else must be happening. “What about him?”  
   
Luke doesn’t answer. He shakes his head, and then he moves again, standing and stumbling, unsteady like he’s drunk, towards the door.  
   
*           *           *


	22. Chapter 22

There is loud, confusing swirling in his brain, colors and thoughts and noises all trying to shine brighter and yell louder and capture his attention, but Luke can only concentrate on one thing. Michael. He needs to get to Michael. He stumbles out of the room and across the hall in a daze; fog clouding his vision and marring the things he thinks he suddenly remembers. Calum is yelling after him but Luke ignores it and forces one foot in front of the other. If he lets his mind wander any further Luke feels like he’ll explode. He might explode anyway. His head is overloaded, too many memories suddenly forcing their way into a space too small to contain them all.  
   
“Michael!” he calls, hammering his fist on the door. He sounds panicked, and feels it too, blood racing so fast through his veins.  
   
“Dude, keep it down!” Calum says from behind him.  
   
To the left, a different door opens, and Ashton’s head pokes out. “Luke?” he asks, groggily.  
   
“Open the door!” Luke shouts.  
   
“You’re gonna get us kicked out!” Calum tries again.  
   
“What’s going on?” Ashton demands. Luke must look insane.  
   
He ignores them both and keeps pounding on Michael’s door. He needs to see Michael’s face. Because he  _thinks_  he knows, but he doesn’t know. Not yet.  
   
“Oh my God, _what_?” Michael snaps, as he pulls the door open. He’s shirtless and messy-haired, lines on his cheek from the pillow he’d been lying on just moments earlier. Annoyance turns quickly to concern when he sees Luke. Michael’s green eyes find his, worry and confusing shining in the moss-colored irises, and then Luke knows for sure. He knows everything. This isn’t a side-effect. It isn’t something his crazy, broken head is inventing.  
   
The things he thought he felt for Michael, back when he still didn’t know who he was, the things he feels now, as much as he tried to push them away – they weren’t new feelings. They were the ghosts of memories. Michael was imprinted on him. Luke’s head didn’t know his own name, but it knew Michael. It knew all along, it was all just buried down too deep to access. But it was real. All of it. Everything that came back to him, falling on him from the sky like a ton of bricks, like a memory thunderstorm; it all happened.  
   
They all knew it, all this time. That's why Michael’s been weird. It’s why Ashton keeps pushing Luke to talk about the things he remembers now. It’s why Calum had that look on his face, when he put the song on. This is what he wanted to happen. He wanted to force Luke to remember, because Michael didn’t …  
   
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Luke whispers. He realizes that, suddenly, too; it wasn’t just that _he_ didn’t remember. This isn’t some memory from his childhood that only he knew about, like that time he skipped class with a friend in year eight and smoked half a cigarette next to the school dumpsters. This is something everyone knew. They _all_ left him in the dark. They let Luke forget.  
   
Michael shakes his head, his lips parted in question. “Tell you what?”   
   
“Don’t do that,” Luke croaks. “You knew? This whole time, you knew and you kept it a secret? All of you?”  
   
Michael glances warily and Calum, standing behind Luke, and then back. “I don’t …”  
   
“You know what I’m talking about!” Luke shouts. There are tears on his face, and daggers in his heart. How could Michael keep this from him? How could they all keep this from him? How could they think this is something he wouldn’t want to remember? “We were in love! And you didn’t tell me!”  
   
“Hey!” a voice yells, from down the hall. “It’s five-thirty in the morning! Do I need to call the front desk?”  
   
“Go inside,” Ashton hisses, his hands shoving at Luke’s back. Michael steps back to let them in. “We’re sorry, sir!” he calls to the man, and, then shuts the door behind them all.  
   
The silence in the room is deafening. It’s thick and sharp, Luke can’t hear anything over the ragged sound of his own breathing, can’t see anything beyond Michael’s face. Michael looks terrified. Broken. Luke’s never felt this way inside in his entire life. He feels gutted, like his chest is trying to rip itself open, to crack his ribcage apart and let his organs spill out to the floor at his feet. It would hurt less, probably, than this.  
   
“You didn’t remember,” Michael barely whispers. Luke almost doesn’t catch it.  
   
“I had _brain damage_ , you fucking dick!” Luke yells, suddenly irrationally angry. The last few months come back to him in scattered pieces. Things he said. Things he felt, that suddenly make all the sense in the world. Things he _did_ , things he wishes so fucking much he could take back. “You should have told me!”  
   
“But you remembered everything else!” Michael protests. There are tears in his eyes now too. Calum and Ashton are hovering a few feet away, like they’re afraid to interject. “Everything but that!”  
   
“You let me sleep with other people,” Luke breathes, memories flooding back to him and choking him. For months, Michael’s been existing in this. Knowing what they used to be; knowing Luke didn’t remember it. Watching Luke bring a girl back to their house, that one time. Watching her leave the next morning. Unexpectedly Luke feels like he might throw up.  
   
“Guys,” Calum says softly, but then he doesn’t continue.  
   
“You wanted to,” Michael mumbles, shrugging helplessly. He looks heartbroken about it. “What was I supposed to do, say it was against the rules?”  
   
Luke scoffs, furious and hurt and embarrassed and so many other things, but Michael continues, louder now.  
   
“No, really? What? You remembered _everything_ but me. What would you have liked me to say? Oh, by the way, you and I used to fuck so we should just go back to doing it even though you have absolutely no memory of it?” Michael shakes his head and laughs – there’s no humor in it. It’s painful instead. “Can you even imagine how fucked that would have sounded? And then what? What if you didn’t believe me?”  
   
“Don’t.” Luke glares at him and shakes his head too.  
   
“I’m just letting you in on the fucking reality I’ve been living in for the last three months!” Michael cries, spreading his arms out. His cheeks are so red. “I didn’t have a choice! I couldn’t tell you, you would have thought I was lying! It would have broken everything we worked so hard to rebuild! I was trying to protect you!”  
   
Somewhere deep inside, past the hurt and the fact that his world just crumbled again for the second time, Luke knows he’s right. He just can’t deal with it right now. He can’t deal with any of it. He turns on his heel and storms out – Calum grabs for him and says, “Wait,” but Luke wrenches his arm out of Calum’s grasp.  
   
“Let him go,” Ashton’s voice says, to one of the other two, Luke doesn’t know which.  
   
Luke runs. He runs down the length of the hall, and down twelve flights of stairs. He doesn’t know where he’s going, he just needs to move. Mindlessly, his feet carry him, and then he’s outside, blinking in the early morning sunlight and wishing it were pouring rain instead. It should be cloudy. It should be a thunderstorm. That’s how Luke feels inside. The pale blue sky is all wrong. The outdoor pool stretches out in front of him, the water sparkling in the sun. There’s no one around. It’s too early. Luke collapses onto the pavement and just cries. It’s all too much. It’s like being drowned in an ocean. He’s lost and alone and he can’t do this, he isn’t strong enough. It chokes him, makes it so he can’t catch his breath.  
   
“Luke.” The voice is Ashton’s. It’s followed by a soft, muttered, “Oh, fuck,” and then quick footsteps approaching.  
   
“If you’re here to defend him, don’t,” Luke warns before Ashton even sits down. He isn’t really expecting to be listened to.  
   
Ashton sits close, rubbing Luke’s back with one hand. Tears stream steadily from Luke’s eyes, hot and devastated. His whole body aches. When a pitiful sob slips from his lips, Ashton gets closer and hugs him sideways, his arms strong and tightly holding Luke together while he falls apart. Luke is mad at Ashton too, he’s mad at all of them, but he can’t resist the comfort his friend is offering. Ashton’s been like his older brother, since they all left Australia together and Luke had to leave his real big brothers behind. He’s always needed Ashton.  
   
“What should he have done?” Ashton asks softly.  
   
“ _Don’t_.”  
   
“No, I’m serious. What would you have done? Luke, we … he was stuck. It was shitty as hell but what choice did he have? Cal and I were always bugging him to tell you, but we were wrong. Think about it. He couldn’t have.”  
   
“Yes he could.”  
   
“ _How_?” Ashton insists. “How would that conversation have even gone? He knew you didn’t remember anything. He thought the part of you that loved him was gone, forever. What would be the point of telling you? So you’d get stuck in the position of having to say you didn’t feel the same way? What good would that have done anybody?”  
   
“He lied to me,” Luke mumbles. He wipes at his eyes. Fuck, he needs to stop crying. He just can’t seem to. “I asked him so many fucking times, if there was anything important I hadn’t remembered yet. He always said there wasn’t. This was the most important thing and he lied about it right to my face.”  
   
“Luke, he had to. But he’s been so miserable. He loves you so much, it’s been killing him.”  
   
“I might have remembered. If he’d told me.”  
   
“Yeah, maybe. And maybe not. And if you didn’t, it would have fucked everything up.”  
   
Luke leans forward, bringing his hands up to cover his face and then hiding against Ashton’s chest. He wants the arms around him right now to be Michael’s. He knows Ashton is right. It just doesn’t make this hurt any less. His chest aches so much his heart might really be breaking.  
   
“Why didn’t I remember him?”  
   
“I don’t know.”  
   
“I felt it,” he admits in a whisper.  
   
“Felt what?”  
   
“I wanted him.” Luke’s voice cracks over the words. He hasn’t said it out loud before. He’s barely been able to admit it to himself until now. It feels revolutionary. “Ash. I fucking wanted him. I didn’t remember what we had before, but I felt it anyway.”  
   
“I … didn’t know that,” Ashton says slowly.  
   
“I didn’t tell anyone. Because I _hated_ myself for it. I was so scared he’d find out, that he’d hate me too. That I’d ruin everything. I slept with girls to get him out of my head, even though it didn’t fucking work. And I was trying to get some space from him the last couple weeks, I thought maybe it might go away. But he didn’t know that was the reason.”  
   
“God.” Ashton breathes out heavily.  
   
“I must’ve hurt him so much,” Luke whimpers, his voice wavering pathetically.  
   
“It isn’t your fault,” Ashton soothes, but the assurance falls further than flat. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Luke’s fault. It still happened.  
   
“Something’s been missing. Since my memories came back, I … I kept pushing at them, I kept trying to find out why I had this pit in my stomach all the time. I thought it was just like … a bunch of little things, you know? Like a birthday party I went to as a kid and a show we played years ago. Little holes that hadn’t filled themselves in yet. But it was him, wasn’t it? It wasn’t a bunch of little holes, it was one bit one. Ash, it was Michael.”  
   
There’s a noise behind them, soft and desperate and strangled. Luke and Ashton break their embrace and swivel around at the waist to see – Michael is standing near the door, fully-clothed now, with Calum beside him. There are tears on Michael’s face too. What’s left intact of Luke’s heart crumbles into a million pieces.  
   
It’s Calum who speaks first. “That’s why you’ve been avoiding him? Because you _liked_ him?”  
   
“I didn’t know what else to do.” It’s Calum’s question, but Luke speaks to Michael. “I thought you’d hate me.”  
   
“I …” Michael just shakes his head. “I couldn’t. Not ever.”  
   
Ashton nudges him, so Luke stands up. He isn’t angry anymore, but it’s all still so broken.  
   
“What do you remember?” Michael asks breathlessly.  
   
“Everything,” Luke whispers. “I remember the first time we kissed. The time Jack caught us, before anyone else knew. The first time you said you loved me, when we were in London and I was homesick and you just wanted me to smile again.”  
   
Michael nods. He blinks against the tears in his eyes. Luke steps closer to him, still wanting to scream and cry and smash a window but needing to be anchored to something. Michael reaches out between them and runs shaky fingertips over Luke’s cheek. It’s the first time they’ve touched in weeks, and it sends sparks into Luke’s skin.  
   
“Michael …”  
   
“What made it all come back?”  
   
“Cal played _Wrapped Around Your Finger_.” Luke tries to smile, but his chest hurts. “We were listening to it and … I don’t know. I remembered the day we wrote it. And then everything else. We wrote that. You wrote the words about me.”  
   
Michael licks his lips and nods. “Yeah. I did.”  
   
“I’m so fucking sorry, Michael.” Luke swallows and his throat feels raw. “I don’t know why I didn’t remember. I should’ve remembered.”  
   
“Don’t.” Michael combs his fingers through Luke’s hair. “It isn’t your fault.”  
   
“I missed you so much.” Luke is aware of so many things, that Calum and Ashton are right there hearing everything, that they’re standing next to an outdoor pool at a hotel and staff or other guests could interrupt them at any moment. They shouldn’t be doing this here, but Luke can’t stop. The words pour out of him like a waterfall. “I didn’t understand it, but I felt it. I just wanted to touch you, make you laugh. I wanted to be with you. I thought I was going crazy. I thought it would destroy everything.”  
   
“Can I please hug you?” Michael asks softly. Luke nods, and Michael’s arms wrap around his neck, pulling him in close. Luke holds around Michael’s back so tightly, pushing his face into Michael’s neck and breathing him in. It’s like a rush of oxygen after months spent suffocating. Michael smells just like Luke remembers.  
   
“When was the last time we kissed?” Luke asks.  
   
Michael exhales. It’s shaky and full of barely-controlled emotion. “The night before the accident.”  
   
“More than three months ago.” Luke wants to throw up again.  
   
“Yeah.”  
   
He lifts his head off Michael’s shoulder and looks down at him. There are tears in Michael’s bright green eyes. Luke holds Michael’s face in his hands, his thumb drawing a slow arc over his soft skin. Michael turns his face into Luke’s palm, and his eyes close.  
   
“I missed you,” he says again, soft and broken. “Every single day.”  
   
Luke swallows and blinks back tears too. He brings Michael’s face closer and presses his mouth into Michael’s. His lips are so soft. Michael whimpers, and then Luke tastes salt. Tears are streaming down his face again, and Luke’s too. He slouches down to pull Michael back into a hug so tight it’s hard to breathe, but he doesn’t loosen his grip. He isn’t letting go of Michael right now for anything in the world. Michael’s head is heavy against his shoulder, and his fingers squeeze fistfuls of Luke’s shirt.  
   
There’s sniffling behind them, and Luke looks over his shoulder. Ashton is wiping his eyes, and Calum coos at them as a joke but his eyes aren’t dry either.  
   
“Shut up,” Michael laughs, thick from tears.  
   
Luke turns back to Michael and dips down to brush their lips together again. He’s going to need to kiss Michael a million times today, to make up for so much lost time. And then every single day for the rest of his life.  
   
*           *           *


	23. Chapter 23

“My head feels like a dump truck unloaded in it. There’s all this stuff rattling around and nowhere to put it yet.”  
   
“We should build some shelves,” Michael jokes. He tries to smile.  
   
Luke doesn’t even try. He’s sitting on the bed in Michael’s room, with his legs tucked up under him, long arms wrapped around them. He curls into a ball, sometimes. When he’s laughing, or when he’s tired. He somehow takes six feet and four inches of lanky limbs and smooth muscle and makes himself so small. Michael’s hand twitches. He wants to touch. He’s just not sure if he’s allowed to. Everything is still so up in the air.  
   
They don’t have very much time. They need to be at the arena for sound-check in less than two hours. Ashton wanted to cancel the show tonight, but Luke insisted they didn’t. They’ve already cancelled enough because of him, he reasoned. Michael would have done the same thing, in Luke’s position, but he’s still worried. Worried it’s too soon, too fast, that Luke might need a day or two to process this before they jump right back in. Mostly, Michael’s worried about himself. That he won’t be able to do this any better than Luke will. That it’s all too much, and he’ll just burst into tears on stage or something equally embarrassing. He, too, feels like there’s an information overload in his brain and he can’t sort it all out yet. And they don’t have time.  
   
Luke rests his head on the tops of his knees and looks at Michael sideways. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.  
   
Michael frowns and shakes his head. “It’s – ”  
   
“I know it isn’t my fault,” Luke interrupts. “That’s not why I’m sorry.”  
   
Michael stares at him for a minute. He’s on the bed too, leaning against the headboard. He unfolds his legs so they’re stretched out in front of him, and holds out a hand. Luke takes it, and crawls into Michael’s lap. Michael wasn’t going to force it, but his chest unclenches when Luke straddles him and lowers himself onto Michael’s thighs. He slowly tips his forehead down to rest against Michael’s, and Michael holds Luke’s hips in his hands. Michael missed him so much.  
   
“All those girls, they were …” Luke doesn’t finish the sentence.  
   
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Michael tells him, but his voice shakes. It’s true, Luke didn’t, but it was still awful. Michael remembers the first night it happened, when they were in Canada, and he could hear them through the walls. He remembers crying himself to sleep, with Calum next to him.  
   
“I hurt you,” Luke whispers.  
   
Michael sighs. “Yeah. But you didn’t mean to.”  
   
“I couldn’t get you out of my head.”  
   
Michael blinks back tears again. He’s been aching for this, to touch Luke again, to hold him.  
   
“I was dreaming about you and everything, and waking up and hating myself. I thought if you knew it would make everything weird. And you were so amazing when we were in Sydney, before I remembered everything. You took care of me. I thought I was such an idiot, for falling for you, when you were just being a good friend.”  
   
“I wish you’d told me. I know you couldn’t. I just … everything would have been different.”  
   
“I wanted to, sometimes. I didn’t know how,” Luke admits. “I didn’t remember that you loved me back.”  
   
“I do. So much. Even when I thought you didn’t anymore,” Michael murmurs.  
   
“I didn’t remember us but I still felt it,” Luke whispers back. “From the first time I saw you, at the hospital. I didn’t understand what I felt but I just knew I needed you. You were the only person I felt safe with. The only one who made me feel like things were going to be okay.”  
   
“Can I kiss you again?” Michael asks softly, not knowing how he’ll cope if Luke says no.  
   
“Yeah,” Luke breathes, and then his lips are on Michael’s, soft and sweet, pushing Michael’s mouth open with his tongue.  
   
Michael melts. He’s weak and useless, letting Luke kiss him until his lips go numb. He slides his fingers under the hem of Luke’s t-shirt, pushing it up his chest. They have to break the kiss so Michael can get the material over Luke’s head, and then he puts his hands back on Luke, his fingers moving over the soft, pale skin. He can’t get enough. He thought he’d never have this again.  
   
“Can’t get used to this. I thought you were gone for good.”  
   
Luke licks his lips and shakes his head. He cups Michael’s cheek in his hand and kisses the corner of his mouth. Michael turns his face into Luke’s palm and closes his eyes for a moment, just absorbing the moment.  
   
“Are you okay?” Luke’s voice is quiet, maybe a bit concerned.  
   
Michael isn’t, not really, but he will be. “Yeah.”  
   
Luke leans back in. Michael hums against his mouth. He drags his nails lightly along Luke’s back, pulling him closer. There’s no way to get him close enough, as close as Michael needs him, without melding their bodies together in a way they can’t. His heart is beating too fast to be comfortable. He wants everything, and at the same time he wants nothing at all. He wants to just wrap Luke up in his arms and lie here with him for hours, days even. Just to be sure it isn’t a dream. Just to make certain it’s real, and Luke is really back here with him, kissing him, loving him again.  
   
Luke’s hands travel slowly, over Michael’s stomach, to the waistband of his sweats. Michael’s head is spinning, blood pulsing in his veins and moving south. He wants it all too much. Then Luke’s hands stop, his fingers playing along Michael’s skin.  
   
“Do you remember the first time?” Michael slurs into Luke’s lips.  
   
Luke’s mouth curves into a smile. “Which one? We’ve had lots.”  
   
“Any of them.”  
   
Luke nods. “Yeah. All of them.”  
   
“I was so scared, the first time I sucked you off,” Michael confesses. He’s not sure he’s ever told Luke that before. They were so young, then. They’re still young, but usually Michael feels old.  
   
“Really?” Luke’s fingers keep moving, just idly touching Michael’s stomach, under his shirt. “You didn’t seem it. _I_ was scared. You were always so confident about everything. Always so sure about exactly what you wanted.”  
   
“I knew I wanted you. I always knew that. I was just scared you wouldn’t like it. Scared I’d be bad at it, that you’d change your mind and you wouldn’t let me kiss you anymore.”  
   
Luke nuzzles into Michael’s cheek. His breath is warm on Michael’s skin. “I love you,” he whispers.  
   
“We don’t have to do anything, okay?” Michael says. He needs Luke to know that, and if he waits a minute longer to say it, he’ll be too far gone. “Not if you don’t want. If it’s too much too fast.”  
   
“It’s been months,” Luke reminds him.  
   
Michael smiles. “I know. But not really. Not for you. You didn’t remember.”  
   
“Part of me did.” Luke rests his head on Michael’s shoulder and kisses his neck. “Not the part that could figure out what it meant. But I missed you, even if I didn’t know it. It was like part of my soul was gone.”  
   
Michael closes his eyes and tries to keep it together. He can’t think about that. It still hurts too much, even though Luke is back now.  
   
“Love you,” Luke whispers again, like he thinks Michael needs to hear it. He’s right. “Wanna feel like I’m yours again.”  
   
Michael nods and kisses him. “There’s stuff in my bag.”  
   
Luke gets up, and Michael shivers when his heat is gone. He strips quickly, naked by the time Luke turns back around, and he watches Luke’s eyes go fuzzy as they slide up and down Michael’s body. Michael blushes, but doesn’t look away. Luke pushes his pants off, so he’s bare too when he returns to Michael and climbs back into his lap. Too many memories wash over Michael. He pushes them away as he slicks his fingers and reaches around Luke, sliding one slowly into him. Later, Michael promises himself, he’ll lock them in a hotel room for a full day. He won’t let them leave the bed. He’ll relearn every inch of Luke; the sounds he makes and the way he smells and the way he _feels_ , when they’re damp from sweat and weak from exertion but keep at it anyway, coaxing more out of each other until they can’t anymore. He needs it so badly, but there isn’t time today.  
   
“Michael,” Luke breathes. He’s rocking slowly back against Michael’s hand, asking for more without saying the words. Michael gives it to him, two fingers and then three, and Luke kisses him like he’ll die if he stops. His cock is hard and dripping between them, and so is Michael’s, and he just wants so much. Too much.  
   
“You’re so beautiful,” spills from Michael’s lips; he didn’t mean to say it, but he’d never take it back.  
   
“Please,” Luke whimpers. “I need you.”  
   
“You got me,” Michael assures. “Forever, okay? Never letting you go again.”  
   
“Never,” Luke agrees. “Please.”  
   
Michael pulls his hand away and holds Luke’s hips instead, helping him, guiding him so he can sink slowly down onto Michael. A low moan vibrates between them. It’s been so long, and it probably wasn’t enough, but Luke doesn’t wait before he’s moving, rolling his hips, grinding himself on Michael. It makes Michael’s stomach clench, it makes his head swim. He wraps an arm around Luke’s waist and flips them, rolling Luke over so he’s on his back, holding himself on his elbows so he can drown in Luke’s mouth while he fucks into him, chasing everything the last few months took away from him. From them both. Luke holds onto him so tight. Michael hopes he never lets go.

* * *

 

“D’you guys mind if I talk about something for a minute?” Luke asks the crowd, through the microphone. He can feel Calum and Michael staring at him, from either side – confused about what he’s doing. Luke doesn’t look back. He can’t wimp out of this. He needs to do it.  
   
The crowd cheers in response; Luke takes it as a _yes_.  
   
“I guess most of you know I, uh. Had a bit of an accident, a while back.”  
   
More screaming – Luke assumes they’re cheering because they’re happy he’s better, not because they’re stoked on head injuries.  
   
“I didn’t remember anything for a really long time. There were lots of jokes made about our song _Amnesia._ ” That isn’t really true, but Luke’s attempting to keep it light. Mostly because he’s so nervous his stomach is churning.  
   
“Where’s this going, buddy?” Ashton says from behind him, laughing. The crowd lets out another roar. They sort of just yell whenever anyone says anything. It’s been that way for a long time. Luke is used to it.  
   
He laughs too. “I have a point, I promise. So, now I do remember things. It all started coming back to me, back in June, but there was this one thing that didn’t come back right away, and that was really shitty.”  
   
Finally Luke chances a glance at Michael, who’s staring at him with wide eyes. Like he thinks he knows what Luke’s doing, but doesn’t quite dare believe it in case he’s wrong. Luke winks at him and turns back to the crowd.  
   
“See, the problem was, this thing was a big secret. No one but the four of us really knew about it, and these assholes didn’t tell me.”  
   
“Luke.” It’s Calum, right next to him suddenly, talking only to Luke; his expression concerned. He can barely be heard over the noise from the audience. “You don’t have to do this.”  
   
Luke leans away from the mic just for a moment to answer, smiling reassuringly as his oldest friend. “Yeah, I do. It’s okay.”  
   
Calum searches his face, dark eyes narrowed, but then whatever he’s looking for he seems to find, and he nods and walks back toward the drum kit.  
   
“That’s why I _could_ forget about this thing, you know?” Luke continues, back into the microphone. He doesn’t know if anyone is even listening to him anymore. He doesn’t know how they’re going to react. If they’ll love it, or hate it. If this will make record sales drop. If Luke’s going to get in enormous trouble for this. He doesn’t care about any of it. The accident almost took Michael away from him. Luke has to make sure that can’t happen again.  
   
“When I didn’t remember anything, I still knew I was in a rock band,” he tells them. “Because it was everywhere. I saw the pictures and the videos. I listened to our songs. I couldn’t get away from it if I wanted to. I knew it existed, even if I didn’t have any memories of it. But this thing. Because we never told anyone, there was nothing to remind me of it, when my head hadn’t remembered it yet. And I never want that to happen again. If I ever fall off another stage, I want this thing everywhere, so I can’t ever forget.”  
   
Luke presses his lips together. There’s a strange hush over the crowd, like they’re all confused – or maybe anticipating.  
   
“So. Um.” Luke looks back at Michael. His heart beats into his throat, but he steels his nerves and does it anyway. He lifts his guitar off, places it onto the stage, walks over in a few quick strides, takes Michael’s face in his hands and kisses him.  
   
Everything slows down. Michael is stiff against him for just a moment, and the arena goes quiet. No one knows how to react. Luke doesn’t either. His stomach twists, nerves tying it into knots. Everything hangs in the balance of this crazy, stupid, fantastic decision. Then the world barrels forward into real time again. The audience erupts. Michael makes a small noise against Luke’s lips and his arms wrap around Luke’s waist, pulling him in closer and kissing back. Luke laughs even though he’s terrified, but Michael is there, opening his mouth against Luke’s, dipping his tongue inside.  
   
“Luke and Michael are making out! Guys! Are you seeing this? Get your cameras out! This is historic!” Ashton yells into his own microphone. He sounds thrilled.  
   
Luke laughs again, harder this time, and has to stop kissing to do it. He looks into Michael’s eyes, and everything is okay. The crowd is screaming its collective head off. Whether that means they’re happy, Luke has no idea. And he doesn’t care. Michael’s cheeks are flushed, his eyes are bright and his face is split into a smile. He’s so fucking beautiful. That’s the only thing Luke gives a damn about.  
   
“I love you,” Luke tells him. Then he leans into Michael’s microphone and repeats it for the crowd. “Guys, I love him!”  
   
Michael shakes his head, smiling so big, and pulls Luke into another kiss.  
   
Someone rushes toward them and arms are thrown around them both. The smell of Ashton’s shampoo surrounds them, his wild curls smushed into Luke’s face. Then Calum is there too, on the other side, completing the circle with his arms around them too.  
   
“You just fucking did that,” Ashton says. Luke only hears because Ashton’s face is right next to his. The rafters are about to be blown off this place; it’s so loud in here. It’s absolute chaos. If a riot breaks out, Luke is definitely going to get sued.  
   
“Yeah,” Luke answers. “Somebody go online later and find a video of this and save it, okay? So the next time I crack my head open, you can just show it to me and we won’t have to do this again.”  
   
“Don’t you fucking dare get hurt again,” Michael threatens. His head is tucked under Luke’s chin, holding onto Luke so tightly in the middle of the perimeter Calum and Ashton created.  
   
“Ever,” Calum agrees. He drops his head down to rest on top of Michael’s, and then Luke and Ashton do it too.  
   
It’s damp from sweat and way too hot, the four of them wrapped up together, and Luke never wants to move. There’s going to be enormous fallout tomorrow, probably. No, definitely. There will be paparazzi and statements to give and interviews. Their management team is going to skin Luke alive for doing it this way, not giving them any time to prepare for the circus that will meet them the second the leave the stage. So just for now, Luke stays where he is. He’ll deal with the rest of it later. It doesn’t matter, now. The only thing that matters is this. His best friends beside him; Michael in his arms. Nothing else is important.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> [follow me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/)


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